You and 99 others awaken in a large room, all confused as to where you are, and how you got there. Soon people start to realize that everybody here is named Jonathan. Except for you.
Soon enough, the doors swung open and a robed man stepped out. The Jonathans all surrounded him, clamoring for answers.
“Calm down,” he said, raising his hands, and every Jonathan felt a sudden tranquility slip upon them. “I do suppose you deserve to know why you’re here. The lot of you, I regret to say, are changelings. Babes swapped into human cribs at birth. Sleeper agents for the goblin race.”
A murmur overtook the crowd. “Yes, yes,” the wizard said. “There are thousands of your kin, all across the world. But I had my spirit scour the land and bring every changeling named Jonathan to me. For you see,” he said, and reached into his robes, bringing out a medallion on a chain. “I’ve bound you all by your true name.” He grinned wickedly. “Hee-hee! Clever, isn’t it? The ritual’s costly, hardly worth a single goblin servant. But in one simple stroke I’ve bound ninety-nine of you! How common names are after all!”
“Um, excuse me,” said a voice from the back. “But I believe there’s been a mistake.”
The wizard glared. “Who – who was that? You – you’re all bound to my will! Who dares speak against me?”
“Well, that’s just it,” said the man at the back. “I, um, I’m not a Jonathan. Mitchell’s my name.” He wrung his hands. “Not sure what I’m doing here.”
The wizard’s eyes narrowed, and he gestured in the air with one hand, trailing plumes of sulfur, and a horned figure, black as shadow, took shape and form. “Spirit! How’d you foul things up this time! What is this … Mitchell doing here?”
The spirit peered at Mitchell with glowing coal eyes. “Sorry,” it said eventually. “Made a mistake.”
“Made a -” The wizard’s face turned red. “This ain’t the first time you’ve screwed me over, you moron! I’ve had this whole spiel planned out, and now you’ve embarrassed me in front of my minions!”
“Um,” Mitchell said, “so if you don’t need me, I might as well go…”
“Oh, don’t be such a drama queen,” the spirit said huffily. “You had me running all over the land in a single night, snatching people out of their beds, I think I’m entitled to make a single mistake.”
“Ain’t like I asked for much!” the wizard said. “Just find every changeling named Jonathan, that’s all I wanted you to do. The most common name in the world, Jon! And you bring me back this-”
“He’s a changeling too!” the spirit said. “I got confused! And I don’t see what it matters anyway. You’ve got near a hundred of these goblin bastards, I don’t see what difference it makes, they’re all practically the same anyway…”
“Oh you don’t see why it matters?” the wizard said, his face very red. “I’ve got ninety-nine goblins, but a Mitch ain’t Jon!”
Everyone else go home this is the best use of that prompt
First off, I had no idea that your spouse could choose floor randomly.
Secondly, ELLIOTT WTF. I get you miss the beach and all but a) when and how did you get all this sand in my house and b) WHY DID YOU BRING SAND INTO MY HOUSE!
I work in a public library and there are times a book comes through circulation that is so awesome I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it before.
Last week I came across this lovely children’s picture book called Why Johnny Doesn’t Flap: NT is OK! by Clay Morton, Gail Morton, and illustrated by Alex Merry. (Pardon the library barcode covering part of the title here.)
[Pictures of the front and back covers of the picture book. The back cover summary says: “My friend Johnny is different from me. We have fun together, but sometimes he acts pretty strangely. He is never exactly on time, he can;t seem to strict to a routine, he stares right into your eyes, and he often says puzzling things. Johnny is neurotypical. I like Johnny and I think being NT is OK.”]
The fact that I was seeing the term “NT” on the cover of a children’s book was enough to pique my interest. Upon further inspection, I discovered that the book is really quite lovely!
[Two page spread reads: “We have a lot of fun together, but sometimes he acts pretty strangely. Mom says it is because he is NT, or neurotypical. He doesn’t have autism, so his brain works differently from mine, but that’s OK.”]
It flips the typical “little Timmy has a special friend” narrative on its head. Instead, the narrator is an autistic boy who has an NT friend who he sometimes struggles to understand.
[Two page spread reads: It can be pretty interesting being friends with a kid who is NT. He has a lot of quirks that can be very frustrating until you get used to them. Mom says that everyone’s brain is different and different isn’t always wrong.”]
The book uses simple terms to describe a perspective not usually seen in any literature, let alone lit intended for children.
[Two page spread reads: “When something exciting happens, Johnny doesn’t respond like you would expect. He doesn’t flap his arms or jump up and down. He just moves the sides of his mouth up and slightly widens his eyes. Maybe he doesn’t know much about how to express emotions.”]
I think ultimately this flipping of the narrative is more effective in getting the message across that kids with autism are just like everyone else but with unique needs.
[Two page spread reads: “Johnny never has a meltdown when disasters happen, like a fire drill or art class being canceled. He is afraid of what people might think. It seems like he is bottling his feelings up, but he just has his own way of dealing with things, and that’s OK.”]
And this book is something autistic kids don’t usually have– it’s a book from their perspective! And it’s a non-offensive, matter-of-fact perspective, which is all the rarer.
[Two pages spread reads: “When he talks to you, Johnny looks directly into your eyes, which can make you pretty uncomfortable. He doesn’t mean any harm, though. That’s just the way he is, and that’s OK.”]
It talks about things that autistic people experience and can relate to.
[Page reads: “I like Johnny. I think that being NT is OK.”]
How awesome is that?
A book like this would have been so beneficial to me as a kid to help me not feel alien. If you want autistic people to relate to others in fiction, we need stories from our point of view too.
I NEED THIS BOOK
I love that it flips the narrative, that’s so clever.
proposal to rename executive dysfunction as ‘Bitch Toddler Dysfunction’ since it’s exactly like living with a horrible contrary small child who refuses to cooperate for fun and smacks things out of your hands but unlike a real toddler this one lives in your frontal lobe and if it says you’re not allowed to do laundry you’re unable to do anything about it
me: hey look I know you don’t really like doing homework but this one is just looking at pictures, okay? Do you wanna look at some pictures? We can have a hot cocoa while we do it and!! if we finish this before 4pm we can watch some TV!! How does that sound? :^)
the horrendous little goblin child who has both hands firmly on the levers on my brains control panel that make me move around and do things: *makes fart noises while I’m talking and hammers the button labeled ‘NAPTIME’ until I pass out*
