The Entirely Fabricated Story of Lizzie Nickerson

Chapter 41

After she'd laced up her Chucks, Lizzie shoved her hands through the sleeves of her gray oversized hoodie and then worked her head through the neck hole. Had she spared a moment to glance into the mirror, she would have seen the effects of the static charge on her hair. But it didn't matter. Her head would soon be buried in her hood.

With her iPhone in hand, Lizzie tromped down the hall and crossed the kitchen toward the front door.

Sonya poked her head in from the living room. "Where are you going?" 

"For a walk."

"Where?" Her voice jerked with surprise and alarm.

Lizzie shrugged. "Just a walk."

"I'm in the middle of something for work or I'd come with you."

"Oh, geez. I'm fourteen. I don't need you to walk with me."

"I know that but I'd feel better if I could come with you."

"How would that make you feel better? That doesn't even make sense. I told you that I need exercise. Exercise is very important."

"I know that." Sonya's shoulders slumped.

"They say walking can benefit the circulatory system. And heart health. Don't get me started on cholesterol and heart health."

"I won't."

"I tried to do a push-up and I hurt my chin."

Sonya let it pass without comment, fearful of a discourse about the dangers of push-ups.

"I need exercise but I don't want injuries. And I also don't want to sweat. Perspiration is gross. I'm opposed to the very concept of it. So narrowing down my options, walking is obviously the most sensible solution. How far is a mile?"

"A mile?"

Lizzie looked back at her phone. "How far is it?"

"Maybe the distance from here to a few blocks past the Kroger. Something like that."

"Are you sure?"

"Your phone can tell you. But don't play with your phone or text while you're walking. That's very–"

"Dangerous. Right. Multitasking is a fallacy. That's not even debatable."

A Zoom notification from the living room drew Sonya's attention. "Lizzie, I need to be in this meeting. Do you really need to go right now?"

"Okay, bye," she said, opening the door.

"Don't make too many turns, okay? Walk in a straight line as much as you can."

"Oh, geez. I don't even know what that means," she said as she left the apartment.

Lizzie heard her aunt's voice from the other side of the door. "Don't get lost!"

She descended the stairs as though she was on a mission and drew the hood over her head. She exited the apartment building and made a right turn, embarking on her journey with her familiar gait, like one foot was slipping out of its high-top shoe.

"What's the big deal?' Lizzie thought. 

It's not like she'd be climbing mountains (there aren't any mountains in Cincinnati) or wriggling through coils of barbed wire. She'd be walking along the sidewalk just the way a normal person does every single day of the week. A mile might be further than Lizzie imagined but on the upside, odds were in her favor she'd meet some dogs.

She thought about how dogs use their electricity in the form of a magnetic compass that works with the Earth's magnetic field to guide them home. People don't believe they're electric. Dogs don't even think about it.

She glanced over her shoulder occasionally to verify that their apartment building and the sidewalk she'd walked were still behind her. As she continued on, she tamped down the notion that she was a little afraid, and the little became bigger the further she walked.

Lizzie's anxiety increased as her spatial awareness decreased. If Lizzie were to do an internet search, she'd learn that spatial awareness is the term given to the concept of understanding the space around us, the objects occupying that space, and our relationships to the space and those objects. Simply put, it's the way our brains help us learn and keep us from being overwhelmed with information.

The first time Lizzie stepped into her Aunt Sonya's apartment building, her nervous system nearly short-circuited from an overabundance of stimuli. The flood of data was too much for her brain to process. With subsequent visits to Aunt Sonya's apartment building, Lizzie's brain began creating a mental map, and the more things in the apartment building became familiar, the more her brain freed up processing space to begin noticing details. 

On the first floor, Ms. Brennan's apartment smelled like thick perfume, pecan putters, or both. A friendly elderly gentleman lived on the second floor at the top of the first flight of stairs. On the third floor, Aunt Sonya's bright and cheerful apartment smelled of cleaning products. 

Spatial awareness also came into play at Lizzie's school. The first few days seemed overwhelming and Lizzie feared she'd get lost trying to find her homeroom. But with each passing day, her brain's mental map allowed her to collect more data and process it. Her teachers and classmates eventually became familiar. She knew where her locker was located and she remembered which teacher taught each subject.

But now, on her maiden voyage down the sidewalk, outside of her familiar confines and very specific emotional world, everything was new. Flooded with information, Lizzie's brain struggled to create its first mental map of this new environment. She felt as though she'd walked a significant distance and yet the Kroger wasn't yet in view. Maybe it was in the opposite direction.

Lizzie avoided looking at the somber faces. Though the pedestrians around her didn't frequently make eye contact they all seemed to know each other, like they were all in on some inside joke but concealed it by not smiling.

Buses, trucks, and mostly cars lolled and rolled along, filling the gulf of asphalt between the sidewalks. She winced at the toxic odor of exhaust and the smell of hot metal and felt the heat leaking out from the stream of vehicles.

Heading in her direction, a young woman walked a copper-colored dog on a leash. Lizzie focused on the dog and her brain set its full attention on interacting with the animal and, as a result, didn't perceive the guy standing across the street watching Lizzie, a guy with a conspicuous Ace of Spades tattoo on his face.