Andrew

Hi! My name's Andrew. I don't have many friends. My mom says that's because other kids don't like autistic children. But if you want to be my friend, that's cool with me.

It's fine if you don't understand me, because most people don't anyways. I'm not even sure that I understand myself sometimes.

It's not that I'm dumber than any of the other guys, because I'm not. I pass the tests just as well as any other kid my age. At least, I think they're my age.

The Nexus says I'm 12, but my mom says I'm older. Whenever I try to ask her how old, she kind of just stares off into space for a minute. Nobody knows their real age, because the Nexus blocked those memories.

I don't know much about blocked memories, but I trust the Nexus. I mean, they protect us, right? And they make fuel, food, money, and like everything. They basically keep the economy from collapsing, I think.

The economy is another thing I don't know a lot about. I think it's got to do with money, and the population. But I don't know much else. The Nexus doesn't teach Citizens about the economy. I don't know why.

When I try to ask Mom about the economy before the Nexus, she zones out. The Nexus blocked those memories too. It must have been pretty bad, for them to completely wipe it away.

For some reason, I can kind of remember more about the past than other people. Like, before the Nexus. I guess it's because of my autism, which is one thing it might be good for. But there's a lot of reasons why autism can really suck.

For one, it makes everyone think I'm weird. Whenever I try to talk to somebody, it seems like we both always get confused. Then they slowly start to try to leave. I don't TRY to make them uncomfortable, it just happens.

Another thing is my autism makes me go to my happy place a lot. My happy place is what Mom calls when I zone out and forget people exist. I like my happy place, because sometimes forgetting about people can be nice. But it also doesn't help with my weirdness level.

Sometimes I wish I didn't even have autism. But Mom is always telling me, "Oh, Andy, I love you just the way you are! I don't want you to change anything."

In fact, I can almost hear her calling "Andy" right now...