Mum, I was a synestic

By Dewi Anggraeni

Rima sat holding the letter from her son Jason. Her eyes were unfocused and her breathing faster than usual. The poor kid. It's still affecting him after all these years. She looked down at the letter again, and read it for the second time, her vision more and more blurred from tears.

San Francisco, July 1996. Mum,

Yesterday I met the most interesting guy I've ever met. He's a clinical psychologist who's written a book called Borderless Sense. We talked about a psychological phenomenon, where a person's senses blend together, instead of being separated into seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting. It is called Synestesia. I was so intrigued I arranged for an appointment with him today. I told him about my situation when I was a kid. He asked me to relate the incidents to him in detail, which I did as much as I was able to. Guess what Mum! He said I definitely had it!

Mum, since you were the only one who genuinely believed me, I thought you'd be relieved to know that it had a name. So Mum, I, your son, was a synestic. I wasn't just weird or fey, as you called it, I was a synestic. Apparently it is not uncommon that kids who have it lose it in their puberty, if they haven't lost it before from social conditioning. Those who retain it are usually very artistic. Well you can imagine Mum ...

***

"Rima, why does he cry each time I come close?" asked Noela, her next door neighbor, of her nine-month-old baby, Jason.

Noela was beginning to show concern at Jason's unusual behavior. Rima didn't know what to say, because she was noticing it too. Looking down at Jason's face then discreetly tightening her embrace, Rima mumbled distractedly, "Maybe it has nothing to do with you. Maybe he's coming down with something."

She knew how unconvincing she sounded, so when Noela stood up to leave she felt a rush of guilt tempered with relief.

Her baby stopped crying as soon as Noela stepped out of the house.

The following week Noela came to tell her she was going to hospital to have a brain tumor removed. Rima involuntarily glanced at the bedroom where Jason was fast asleep, before inviting Noela in.

They sat in the kitchen avoiding each other's eyes for several seconds, then Noela spoke. "You know Rima, I've been having headaches for some time, but I'd never thought of going to see a doctor. I just went on taking headache tablets."

Rima waited, recognizing in Noela's tone and body language, that there was more to come. Something serious.

"You know what prompted me? Your baby son, Jason!"

"Jason? How do you mean?"

"Rima, remember last time I was here? Each time I came near him he shrieked!" Remember that? How could she forget?

"D'you remember his face then, Rima? I believe that young children can sense something that we adults can't, because they're still pure. He was positively scared. There was no mistaking it. I saw fear in his eyes."

Two months later, when Rima and Jason visited Noela at home, she was still recovering from her operation. At first Jason looked intently at Noela, then began to slide down Rima's lap to crawl on the carpeted floor. He didn't cry. But then maybe he was in a better mood, or even, that little bit older. Nonetheless Rima and Noela exchanged meaningful glances without saying a word.

***

"Rick, Jason is fey. I'm sure of that."

Rick pulled Jason away from his shoulder and examined his face. Blowing his nose into a handkerchief, Rick replied, "You mean the business with Noela? You don't think you're making too much of it? It was probably just a coincidence!"

"Rick, Jason hasn't left you alone since you woke up. Before you even told me you weren't feeling well, he'd already known. Notice how affectionate he has been to you? I've also been watching how he keeps looking at your face and around your head."

Rick laughed feebly. "How come he's not screaming and carrying on like the way he did with Noela?"

"Because you're not seriously ill. That's why."

Rick shammed a hurt expression. "You mean, I'm just a hypochondriac?"

"You're being silly now. You know what I mean."

"Is it because he's half Indonesian?" asked Rick half jokingly

Rima just smiled and ignored the taunt.

***

When Jason went to Kindergarten and began to play with other children in the neighborhood, Rima discovered that he was able to see and feel people's auras.

"Mummy, Brett's daddy had a dark pillow. It hurt when he came near me."

"What's this pillow you're talking about, darling?" asked Rima.

Jason looked surprised, as if his mother should have been aware of what he meant. "You know, the pillow behind your head. Your pillow is nice and soft."

"What color is mine?" asked Rima.

"Yellow, of course."

"What color is Dad's?"

"Yellow, like yours. Like most people."

"Why did Brett's dad's pillow hurt you?"

"I don't know. Just did. Like it scratched."

"You mean, you went to him and touched it?"

Again, Jason looked wide-eyes at his mother. "No, Mum. It just scratched."

Rima discovered that Ron, Brett's father, had been retrenched from his company, and was taking it badly. It had caused a lot of tension in the family. Ron's wife, Linda, had finally gone to visit her parents in New South Wales, taking their baby daughter with her. Ron saw this as Linda not wanting to be with him.

"He's really down and out, poor fellow," said Rick, "I think I'll go and have a beer with him. You don't mind, do you, love?"

Remember Mum, when I found out you were pregnant with Lita? I was so intrigued with your double aura ...

"Mum, why's there a little pink ball inside your pillow? Mum, come over closer, let me feel it better."

Rima gasped. She'd missed a period but hadn't done anything about it.

"Rick, I'm pregnant."

Rick reached and collected her in his arms. When she finally pulled herself away Rick asked, "You didn't tell me you'd been to the doctor."

"Well, I haven't. Jason told me."

Rick did his best not to look cynical. "But will you see the doctor?"

"Of course, if you want me to."

School was the beginning of the end. I got so much rubbishing I began to doubt whether I was normal ...

"Mum," Jason said one day after school, "can you see people's pillows?"

Rima lifted him and placed him comfortably on her lap before saying, "Jason, what you can see is called aura, not pillow."

"What do you mean? What is aura?"

"Aura is a part of our body that most people can't see, and most people can't feel it either?"

Jason looked closely into his mother's eyes. "Mum, you mean, you can't see and feel it either?"

"No, darling. I can't see or feel it, but I know it's there."

"How d'you know it's there, if you can't see or feel it?"

"Jason, I can feel it. Not the way you feel it. I can sense it. You know," Rima waved her fingers as if she were performing a Javanese dance, "like I can feel the cold or something like that."

"How come then I can see and feel it, Mum?"

"Because my darling, you are special."

"The big kids from grade four said I was weird."

Rima had to suppress her irritation before saying softly, "No sweetheart. You are fey. You are special. You can see and feel something other people can't. That's special."

"Fey, Fey," Jason repeated, still looking into his mother's eyes. He then raised his head to glance above her head. "Mum, your aura is glowing!" Then he held her tight.

The really big battering came with Uncle Brian's death. Mum, you have no idea the inexplicable and inexorable guilt I carried with me after his death. I felt that if I hadn't seen it he wouldn't have died. At the same time I felt that if I had told you folks earlier he would've been saved ...

Jason was in grade five and had stopped talking about auras, except to his mother. One weekend, Rick and his brother-in-law Brian took him river fishing. They returned home smelly and suntanned. Rima noticed however that they were not as rowdy as they usually were after a camping trip. Jason was especially quiet.

Brian drove away almost immediately after he had dropped Rick and Jason.

"What's the matter with Brian?" asked Rima when they were inside.

"He wasn't feeling his best all weekend, love. In fact, he has been feeling tired lately, He thought the trip would revive him, but apparently it didn't."

"Maybe he should see a doctor."

"That's what I said. But you know what Brian's like."

" So it wasn't quite as good a weekend as you'd expected?"

"No, but it was OK. We'll go again when he's better."

Several weeks later they visited Brian and Melanie, to find that Brian was still off color. Melanie was complaining that her husband would not see a doctor.

"Ah no. I just need a break, sweetheart. I'll take some leave next month, then I'll be as good as gold after that."

Suddenly Rima saw Jason's face. It was a picture of restraint and frustration, but only a moment. He then looked away and began playing with Lita, pointedly avoiding his mother's gaze.

As soon as they drove off in the car, Rima turned to Jason and asked, "Jase, you saw something in his aura, didn't you?"

Jason looked away and didn't answer. Lita craned her neck from her restraining seat-belt, trying to look at her brother's face.

"Jase? What did you see?" Rima pressed on. She turned to look at Rick then back at Jason, "Doesn't matter Jase. Dad should hear this too. I think it is serious."

Even Rick grimaced. "What d'you mean Jase, not whole?" he asked.

"It was cracked and broken. And in the cracks there were red blobs. They were stinging."

"Oh my God," Rima whispered. She'd turned white. "Rick, you must make him see a doctor. He hasn't got any time to lose!"

But it was too late. Brian died of carcinoma two weeks later.

In their grief, the family didn't notice that Jason had withdrawn into himself until months after the event. He played with his friends less and less.

I can't remember exactly when I finally and completely lost it, Mum. But the guilt remained for an awful long time.

Rick agreed that Jason was badly affected by Brian's death, and with Rima he tried to cheer him up by showering him with attention. When this did not draw him out of his shell, they decided to take him to a psychologist.

"He's suffering from a delusion of excessive responsibility," said the psychologist, who suggested a separate session each with Rick an Rima, to establish what caused Jason's delusion.

"Let's go along, love, it may help Jason," said Rick

Rima only smiled sadly. "No use. She's on the wrong track."

You were right Mum to let me sort it out myself, which I did, in my own time. However, with the guilt my synestesia left me too. Curiously enough, I was happy I no longer had it. Probably I had begun to regard it as a burden. Mum, I also know it will disappoint you to find that my past condition has a scientific name. To you it was a gift, wasn't it? Please understand Mum, to me knowing it has a name is peace of mind ....

The back door opened and Lita walked in, carrying her brown leather bag containing books and lecture pads. She came up and gave her mother a kiss on the cheek and looked down at the letter. "Oh, a letter from Jason! How's he? What's he say?"

"He says he was a synestic," Rima replied absently.

"A what?" Lita put her bag brown, her face puffed up with enquiry.

"A synestic." Rima thrust the letter towards her daughter before getting up and walking away, quietly wiping away her tears.

Dewi Anggraeni was born in Jakarta, Indonesia. She lives in Melbourne with her husband and two children. She was the Australian correspondent for Tempo, and now writes for The Jakarta Post, Forum Keadilan and other publications in Indonesia and Australia. Combining her skills as a journalist and novelist, her works have been published in both languages, in Australia and Indonesia. She has three books published in Australia: two novels, The Root of All Evil (1987) and Parallel Forces (1988), and the third, a trilogy of novellas, Stories of Indian Pacific (1993). She has also contributed articles and short stories to several anthologies.