Gypsy Curse

Here’s my problem: I can’t sit and read at the same time. There’s something about stillness that shreds my concentration, just completely shatters my ability to focus. It wasn’t always this way. When I was small, I could inhale books no matter what position my body happened to be in.

But then something strange and catastrophic happened. I remember it well. I remember the day, the minute it all ended. I was on the bus, on my way to school, reading an Elfquest comic book. And, though I was mostly engrossed in the story, there was something nagging at me. Some tiny, anonymous kernel of worry, a little pinprick of dark potentiality lurking on the borders of my subconscious. Whispering at me. Saying: “I’m going to stop up your brain, little man. I’m going to take this thing you treasure, that you don’t even know you treasure, and I’m going to coat it with burs and brambles, barbs and thorns. I’m going to dip it in tallow and roll it in tar. I’m going to wrap it in chains and drop it down a well.”

I’d been hearing this vague and inscrutable threat for weeks, but then, right then, it happened: the line of dialogue I was reading dissolved into an atomic, disassociated cloud of letters, an acrostic jumble of meaningless words. I read the sentence again, and again, and again, until finally it sunk in. The same thing happened to the next sentence. And the next. And the next. And to many, many sentences since then.

I don’t know why it happened. I don’t even know if it happened, but suddenly reading became a chore. Every paragraph seemed to burst out of the page like a clutch of startled quail, and getting it all back together was a herculean task, a small miracle of concentration.

It’s gotten a lot better over the years, as I’ve learned various ways around the chaos. But the only method that works consistently is motion. If I walk, or pace, or peddle, I have no problems at all. If I sit, or lie down, or even stand in one place for too long, my mind wanders, or rebels, or just puts me to sleep. It’s a strange little gypsy curse that sends me down sidewalks or twisted forest paths with a book in my hand, marching past the mental barriers that the curse throws up in front of me.

I get my share of ridicule for this, of course. There’s something irresistibly mockable about a guy walking around with his head in a book. I’ve gotten lots of grief from passing motorists: taunts hurled out of speeding cars, coming out of nowhere, stopping my heart, then dopplering away into silence. Harmless, I suppose, but weird. Shouldn’t these people feel some sympathy for my affliction? Why do I have suffer it and their scorn?

Today, some guy in an SUV screamed “Read that book!” as he sped by, a self-appointed literacy drill sergeant barking orders at his brigade of one. This was, sadly, one of the more creative taunts I’ve heard over the years. I usually get inchoate yells, or high-pitched screams, or mock ululations, laced here and there with obscenity.

It could be worse, I suppose. The curse could have made reading possible only if I was hanging upsidedown, or sitting in bathtub full of eels, or snorting carrot juice, or watching Fear Factor. At least I can read. That’s plenty to be thankful of right there. And, really, I’m not sure this whole “transformation” thing isn’t something my mind cooked up on its own, some lost paradise to strive after.