18:34
Noah didn’t find it easy to fill in Ms Turner’s mindmap.
There’s plenty he needs (clothes of the same make and colour, an accurate clock); lots he has to do (checking, counting and so on), but there’s not all that much he likes. If anything. By the end of the 10 minutes his sheet of paper was still largely blank. So when Ms Turner said, ‘Noah, anything you want to share?’ he’d said no, because all he had were 5 names: Mom, Maddie, Spit, Spot, Juliet, and then, further down the page, Dad, with a question mark.
Noah’s trying to write it down now, figure out what it is that rises up every time he thinks about his father and, for that matter, every time his father sees him.
He does like his father, but he’s not sure if his father likes him back. If someone doesn’t like you can you add them to a list? Ms Turner wants him to lead some of their conversations, find useful ideas to discuss with her, and that’s one. The question mark next to his father’s name.
Things he doesn’t like are easier. He could have filled those circles in no time. His non-favourite colours for example. Just thinking about them he needs to breathe a few times, feel the security of 5 gathering.
But Ms Turner had said something else the other day. ‘Try to write out the tough stuff if you can, Noah. If you do, it will lose some of its power and then you might be ready to talk it through with me.’
She’s patient, Ms Turner. She doesn’t rush him, but he’s going to have to rush himself, pick up his pen (definitely down-up-down-up it) and scribble the tough stuff as fast as he can. It feels like the words he writes will burn the paper.
Here goes.
He never wears red or black. (Just writing the words is hard.)
Danger colours. They scream. Red yells warning, black booms danger.
Danger is coming, danger is upon us.
Red is a spark in the Dark. Red is darkness flashing.
Black is a yawning hole with nothing to hold on to, everything to be terrified of.