The Universe versus Alex Woods

by Extence, Gavin

  All of my clothes had to live in a chest in the living room, but most of the time, I just stayed in my pyjamas.

  My world had become very small, and it stayed like that for a long, long time.

  After a while, anything can become routine – even fits. I got used to them, and eventually, my mother did too. As Dr Enderby explained to us at a very early stage, epileptic fits look a lot scarier than they are. They can’t really hurt you unless you happen to fall and hit your head or bite your tongue while you’re unconscious. Serious injuries are rare, especially in short-lived episodes, and my fits never lasted more than a few minutes.

  I learned how to recognize the early stages of my seizures many months before I learned how to halt their progression. The early warning that some people get before a seizure is called an ‘aura’, and it usually manifests itself as a very specific sensation or emotion – a ringing in the ears, a loss of balance, a sudden feeling of déjà vu. In my case, the aura was always the same – a sudden, powerful smell. This might sound strange, but it isn’t. Dr Enderby told me that lots of people with temporal lobe epilepsy experience strong olfactory – smell-related – hallucinations. The aura I experienced told him that my seizures were originating in my olfactory cortex before spreading to the other parts of my temporal lobe – the parts responsible for memory and emotion and so on.

  Once I became able to recognize my aura and understand the progression of my seizures, they became much less disorientating. Sometimes when I experienced partial seizures without losing consciousness, it wasn’t that different to falling asleep – at the stage when you’re still half awake and tiny pictures just kind of pop in and out of your head like scraps of film. These visions were still strange, but once I knew what was happening, they were rarely disturbing.

  My mother bought me a book about epilepsy that Dr Enderby had recommended, and in this book it said that people suffering from temporal lobe seizures often experience deeply religious visions. The nature of these visions depended on the religious background and upbringing of the patient, and people had reported seeing all kinds of curious hallucinations: angels, demons, dazzling white lights, pearly gates, bearded men, many-armed elephants, the Virgin Mary, Jesus playing a trumpet – that kind of thing.

  In my most frequent recurring vision, I saw a scrawny, dirty, naked peasant hanging by his feet from a tree.

  ‘That’s the Hanged Man,’ my mother whispered when I told her.

  ‘I know it’s the Hanged Man!’ I snapped. And I realized straight away that I shouldn’t have told her. Now she’d want to make a big deal out of it.

  ‘It often signifies inertia – a life held in suspension,’ my mother pointed out.

  ‘I know what the Hanged Man signifies,’ I assured her.

  ‘You’ll tell me if you see anything else, won’t you?’ she asked.

  I decided at that point that I probably shouldn’t tell her if I saw anything else. I knew what she was thinking. I could see the cogs turning. Despite everything that Dr Enderby had told us, she was still thinking that I’d inherited ‘the family gift’. She was thinking that my brain had started to predict the future, or at the very least, the present.

  The period of my confinement was also the period in which I developed my insatiable appetite for reading. Reading, it turned out, was one of the only things I could do. I couldn’t go anywhere, and I didn’t really like watching TV unless there was a James Bond film on. About the only programme I liked to watch regularly was The Simpsons. Sometimes my mother watched it with me after she’d closed the shop. But most of the time, watching TV in my pyjamas made me feel like an invalid.

  Reading, on the other hand, never made me feel like an invalid. And I found that the quiet concentration required actually helped to reduce the number of daily seizures. It put me in a state of mind that was good for me.

  After I’d read through my book on epilepsy a few times, I had my mother order some more of the same from the mobile library, along with an introductory guide to the brain and neurology, called The Brain for Dummies. I also read and re-read the book on meteors and meteorites that Dr Weir had sent me. It was by a man called Martin Beech who lived in Wiltshire, right next door to Somerset. My favourite chapter was the one in which Mr Beech discussed the probability of getting directly struck by a meteor heavier than one gram, which, if you lived for one hundred years, was about one in two billion. Mr Beech (who had written his book before the Woods Impactor) said that although there had been several near misses, there was only one well-documented case of a person being seriously injured by a meteor strike. The person in question was Mrs Annie Hodges of Sylacauga, Alabama, USA, who was struck in the stomach by a four-kilogram meteor on 28 November 1954. She was reposing on her couch at the time. Her meteor, like mine, burst through the roof, but she wasn’t so badly injured on account of the fact that the stomach can take a blow better than the head.

  Martin Beech included a photo of Mrs Hodges in his book. The photo showed her standing below the hole in her ceiling with the Mayor of Sylacauga and the Chief of Police. The mayor and the Chief of Police are smiling at the camera, but Mrs Hodges is not. She’s looking very intensely at her four-kilogram stony meteorite, which she’s holding in both her hands. She looks kind of pissed off.

  This is what Martin Beech wrote about Mrs Hodges and her meteor injury: ‘This story reminds us that even very low-probability events can, and indeed do, occur.’

  I liked that sentence a lot. I underlined it in black biro.

  I didn’t just read about brains and meteors, though – my interests were slightly wider than that. I also read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. (My epilepsy book said that Lewis Carroll also had temporal lobe epilepsy, which was probably one of the reasons he had such a strange imagination.) Then, after I’d finished with Lewis Carroll, I started to read a lot more fantasy books, most of which Sam lent me. I read The Hobbit twice. Then I read The Lord of the Rings twice. Then I read His Dark Materials twice. I read all these books twice because I liked them so much that as soon as I’d finished them, I immediately wanted to go back to the beginning and start again. When I look back at the year I spent in the box room, I think these were the books that stopped me from feeling sorry for myself and got me to thinking that, on the whole, my life wasn’t so terrible. When I read these books, I no longer felt like I was confined to a very tiny world. I no longer felt housebound and bedbound. Really, I told myself, I was just brainbound, and this was not such a sorry state of affairs. My brain, with a little help from other people’s brains, could take me to some pretty interesting places, and create all kinds of wonderful things. Despite its faults, my brain, I decided, was not the worst place in the world to be.

  My correspondence with Dr Weir started after I was released from hospital and has continued through to the present day. I enclose now carbon copies of the letter I sent from the box room (2005) and the reply I received.

  Dear Dr Weir,

  Thank you for my Christmas card. Jupiter is a very pretty planet, but not quite as pretty as Earth. I was very surprised to hear that the Great Red Spot is three times bigger than the whole Earth. That must be a very impressive storm. Jupiter is even more massive than I thought. If you have any more photos of the planets, I’d like to see them very much. Usually I’d Google them, but unfortunately I don’t have access to the internet at the moment.

  I’m sorry I haven’t written to thank you sooner, but I have been suffering from quite a lot of epileptic fits. In case you don’t know, an epileptic fit is where the electricity in your brain gets overactive and causes convulsions and hallucinations, et cetera. I was diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) just after Christmas when I fell unconscious in the kitchen. I think I’m starting to get better now, though. Dr Enderby, my neurologist, is very nice. He prescribed me some carbamazepine, which is an anti-epileptic drug. It used to make me feel very tired and sick, but now that I’ve got used to it, it’s not so bad.

  Unfo
rtunately, I’ve not been able to go to school for many months because my fits have been too frequent and severe. Dr Enderby says that stress is one of my main triggers at the moment, but there are things I can learn to help with this. The good thing about being off school is that at least I’ve been able to do lots of reading. I’ve read Martin Beech’s meteorite book at least five times, and also lots of books about the brain. Dr Enderby says that it’s good for me to know about my condition and I’ve enjoyed learning about my temporal lobes and neurons and synapses, et cetera. I never realized the brain was so complicated. Dr Enderby told me it’s the most complicated collection of atoms in the known universe. That blew me away!!! I think when I grow up, I might like to be a neurologist, unless I decide to be an astrophysicist instead.

  Anyway, despite all the learning I’ve been doing by myself, the Local Education Authority still wrote to my mother saying that if I couldn’t go to school, they might have to send a private tutor round to give me lessons. But luckily we don’t have to pay any extra for this. It’s all included in my mother’s taxes.

  Thank you again for my card and for Martin Beech’s meteorite book. I hope you are well and your research is going well and the other astrophysicists have forgiven you for being the first to examine my iron-nickel meteorite. I still plan to donate it to a museum one day, but for now I still like to look at it on quite a regular basis. It’s on my bookcase next to my bed, so it’s usually the first thing I see when I wake up, which is nice.

  Yours sincerely,

  Alex Woods

  Dear Alex, [Dr Weir replied]

  It’s lovely to hear from you again, although I’m very sorry to hear that you’ve been so ill. I know that epilepsy can be a very difficult condition to deal with, but I’ve Googled Dr Enderby and, I must say, it sounds like you’re in very capable hands. Stay positive and I’m sure you’ll continue to get better.

  I’m thrilled that you’re taking such an interest in science! You sound as if you already know a great deal about the brain, so I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful neurologist (and if you decide to become an astronomer, so much the better!).

  Since you enjoyed Martin Beech’s meteorite book so much, I think you’ll also enjoy The Universe: A Beginner’s Guide [enclosed]. Think of it as a ‘get well soon’ present! It has lots of information about the stars and the planets and the Asteroid Belt, as well as some superb photos from the Hubble Space Telescope.

  Do make sure you write again soon. I’ll be very eager to hear how you’re getting on – especially with all the reading!

  All my best wishes,

  (Dr) Monica Weir

  P.S. Please send my warm regards to your mother as well.

  Over the next months, I became more and more used to managing my condition. Dr Enderby taught me several exercises designed to help me stop seizures in their earliest stages – as soon as I became aware of my aura. These exercises were all based on staying calm and alert and focussed – on switching my attention away from unwanted thoughts and feelings and towards some kind of anchor.

  I watched my breath. I counted to fifty. I named each of the planets and major moons in turn, starting at the Sun and working my way out to the Kuiper Belt. I listed every character from The Simpsons I could think of. I remained calm and alert and banished any distractions to a separate corner of my mind and focussed my attention like a laser. It was a very strange experience. I told Dr Enderby that it felt like Jedi training. Dr Enderby replied that it was like Jedi training. It was a form of meditation – a way of helping my brain to stay poised and peaceful.

  Music was another anchor that I tried. Dr Enderby said that research had shown that, for many people, listening to music could help to slow or stop the progression of a seizure. But you had to really listen, and some types of music tended to work better than others. Ideally, the music should be calm and have a reasonably intricate structure. Instrumental classical music had been shown to work the best in most cases. Unfortunately, my mother didn’t own any instrumental classical music. There were only five CDs in the flat. Four were ‘relaxation music’ – whales and dolphins and panpipes and so on – and the other was a weird compilation album from the 1980s. The first track on it was ‘Enola Gay’, an ancient song about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. The second was ‘Neunundneunzig Luftballons’ by Nena, which also had something to do with nuclear annihilation. This was a popular theme of the 1980s because Ronald Reagan was President of the United States and everyone feared the worst – but that was something I would only come to understand later on, after talking at length with Mr Peterson.

  After some experimentation, I found that the dolphins did nothing, the panpipes worked okay, and ‘Enola Gay’ made my seizures considerably worse.

  The private tutor sent by the Local Education Authority was called Mrs Sullivan. She was nice enough, but she was only paid to come for three hours a week and most of that was spent going over all the things I already knew. Mrs Sullivan said that the most important thing at that moment was to make sure that I was up to date with everything that would come up in the Key Stage 2 SATs, which I should have taken several months earlier. She wouldn’t teach me anything new – any of the secondary-school stuff I should have been learning at that age.

  ‘One thing at a time, Alex,’ she insisted.

  This, unfortunately, made our lessons rather tedious. My attention wandered a lot. I’d decided that I liked learning better when I could do it in my pyjamas in the privacy of the box room.

  When I was eventually allowed to sit my SATs, I passed them with no problems at all. But by that time, I was a whole year behind everyone else my age, and the Local Education Authority decreed that when I started secondary school, I’d be starting in the year below. I didn’t know enough to skip a year.

  I would have liked to have pointed out to whoever made the final decision that actually I knew quite a lot of things – things that some twelve-year-olds didn’t know. I knew a surprising amount about the anatomy and physiology of the brain. I knew the difference between meteoroids, meteors and meteorites. I knew words like achondrite and olfactory and cerebellum. But I don’t suppose this would have made much difference. My self-education had been scattergun, at best, and most of the knowledge in my head was the wrong sort of knowledge. I didn’t know half the things I was supposed to know at twelve years old.

  I knew that iridium-193 was one of two stable isotopes of iridium, a very rare, very dense metal, but I didn’t know that the periodic table even existed.

  I knew how many zeroes there were in a quintillion, but I thought that algebra lived in ponds.

  I’d picked up a few Latin words, and a smattering of Elvish, but my French was non-existent.

  I’d read more than one book of more than one thousand pages (more than once), but I wouldn’t have been able to identify a metaphor if it poked me in the eye.

  By secondary-school standards, I was quite a dunce.

  WELCOME TO THE MONKEY HOUSE

  In case you didn’t know, in secondary school – especially in the early years of secondary school – diversity is not celebrated. In secondary school, being different is the worst crime you can commit. Actually, in secondary school, being different is pretty much the only crime you can commit. Most of the things the UN considers crimes are not considered crimes at secondary school. Being cruel is fine. Being brutal is fine. Being obnoxious is fine. Being superficial is especially fine. Explosive acts of violence are fine. Taking pleasure in the humiliation of others is fine. Holding someone’s head down the toilet is fine (and the weaker the someone, and the dirtier the toilet, the finer it is). None of these things will hurt your social standing. But being different – that’s unforgivable. Being different is the fast-track to Pariah Town. A pariah is someone who’s excluded from mainstream society. And if you know that at twelve years of age, you’re probably an inhabitant of Pariah Town.

  Being different sounds like a simple concept, but actuall
y, it’s quite complex. For a start, there are a few types of difference – a selected few – that are acceptable and won’t result in you getting mud and stones hurled at you. For example, if you’re different because your family is unusually rich (as long as it’s the right kind of rich) and has three cars (the right kind of cars), then you’ll probably be okay. Secondly, there are some combinations of difference that can cancel each other out. For example, if you’re abnormally stupid in almost every area but also happen to have abnormally good hand–eye or foot–eye co-ordination – that is, if you’re abnormally good at sports – then you’ll definitely be okay.

  The crime of being different is really the crime of being offensively different, and this can be broken down into several sub-crimes.

  1) Being poor. This is the worst crime you can commit, but, again, it’s not as simple as it sounds. Being ‘poor’ really means not having the right stuff – Nike trainers, an appropriate amount of pocket money, a PlayStation or Xbox, a mobile phone, a flatscreen TV and computer in your bedroom and so on and so forth. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have these things for reasons other than poverty. You’re still poor.

  2) Being physically different – too small, too gangly, too spotty, buck teeth, braces (to prevent buck teeth), too skinny, too fat (equals very fat), too hairy, not hairy enough, excessively ugly, tendency to stutter or stammer, unacceptable pitch of voice, unacceptable accent, unacceptable odour, disproportionate limbs or features, cross-eyed, bug-eyed, lazy-eyed, poor vision/crap glasses, lumps, bumps or humps, excessive freckling, large visible moles, unacceptable skin colour or tone, sickly, disabled, unacceptable bone structure, ginger hair.

  3) Being mentally different – too clever, too stupid, too swotty, bookish, nerdy, weird hobbies and interests, just weird, incorrect sense of humour.