I’m Living With an Autistic Teenage Necromancer
His screams wake the dead.
True story: I live with Jesse, a boy with severe autism. He’s 15, but he looks and sounds like an eight-year-old. Instead of speaking, which is difficult, he experiments with different techniques — repeating words, giggling, hitting — to get people’s attention.
Recently, Jesse has latched onto the greatest attention-grabber of all:
Screaming.
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to live in a haunted house, where a waffle-obsessed necromancer constantly wails for justice, then look no further than Jesse’s place. In this hallowed home, there is no shortage of screams to be had.
One scream for you, another for you, and here you are, sir…
Living with an autistic, teenage necromancer isn’t easy. It takes patience. It takes waffles. And it takes digging into articles from the tormented brains of weirdos like me.
Gloves on and spades up, friends. We’re about to unearth what it’s like to live with an autistic, teenage Necromancer.
Wakeup Screams
Imagine. You’re dozing in the living room. It’s 8 AM. Light streams through the windows to the front yard. As birds chirp and the palm trees rustle, you think, ah, what a great morning to be alive.
Down the hall, a door opens. Jessie’s mother pads to her son’s room. There’s a soft exchange of words as she attempts to gently rouse him from his morning slumber.
“AHHHHHHHHHHH!”
A bloody, piercing scream breaks the morning silence. Then another, and another. That’s three screams in the span of seven seconds, as Jesse the Necromancer arises, fully aware that he has lost the opportunity to sleep in.
From even further down the hall, Jesse’s 13 year-old sister cries, “It’s 8 AM Jesse, STOP SCREAMING!”
As the dogs attack your feet with wet kisses, you realize you’ve never been more awake in your entire life. Who needs morning coffee when you live with Jesse, the human alarm clock?
Breakfast Screams
You’ve risen, but the dead haven’t. Not until Jesse’s mother tells him no, you haven’t earned your blanket and dares to serve him a gluten-free meal without waffles. There is a pregnant pause as Jessie prepares to cast upon the neighborhood his signature spell:
“AHHHHHHHHHHH!”
And lo! Aunt Martha is turning over in her grave, stuffing her ears with grave dirt and wondering why the heck she has to put up with this baloney.
As you sip your tea and scratch your black cat behind the ears (for luck), you secretly find yourself wondering the same thing. Why DO you put up with this baloney? More importantly, why oh why haven’t you invested in earplugs?
After-School Screams
The day has spun full-circle, and your favorite necromancer has returned home tired and sullen. It’s been a long day, and somebody forgot to pack his favorite snack (waffles), and his aid (read: minion) has been useless at interpreting his nonverbal cues (in Jesse Language, a sideways glance = I need to pee RIGHT NOW QUICK GO GO GO).
Needless to say, the little necromancer is not happy.
Everything comes to a head when his minion scolds Jesse for trying to oh-so-sneakily snatch the dog collar from Winnie, the house Labrador. And who can blame the boy? It’s so tempting, that buckled strap of bright-blue nylon.
“AHHHHHHHHHHH!”
You nod your head and resume working from the safety of your basement, where the angry dead can’t find you. Periodically, you rush to the kitchen for sustenance, praying that Jesse doesn’t summon another banshee while you’re scrounging Ground Zero for snack mix and pop-tarts.
Bedtime Screams
The moon has set, the zombies crawled from their graves to scare local high-school daredevils and keep the grave-robbers busy. Your little necromancer has eaten his supplement, and he’s dozing off on the couch to Mary Poppins. Romance is in the air as adults of the household anticipate a night chock-full of old sitcoms and blissful silence.
Why don’t you give it another go, Jessie, you say, coaxing one last, tired squawk from Jesse, who stumbles off to bed, finally spent.
“AHhhh…”
You lock eyes with Jesse’s mother and express how joyful you are that the house is at peace — telepathically, of course. Just in case. After all, in this house, the dead lurk, and one never knows when a hollow scream might emerge from the den of the slumbering necromancer.
As you snuggle in and lay your head down on your plump pillow, a ghostly apparition who should be in bed presses his ear to the wall, and…
“AHHHHHHHHHHH!”
…on second thought, maybe your attempt to rest in peace was doomed from the beginning?
Author’s Aside Thanks for reading about what it’s like living with Jesse! He’s a good kid, jokes aside.
Goodnight, reader. Peaceful dreams. (: