A guest in anyone’s house I am a nightmare.  Wringing my hands, I resist the urge to repeatedly ask the host/hostess for the exact location of each family member/guest.  Exact.  Like an interactive map I need to track them like little walking Google map people.

I’m not being nosy.  I just need to know where every single person is – at all times.  Know your potential foe.  Even if it is a friend. 

And know your battle plan.

Trailing the host/hostess, I drift ghostlike between rooms.  One white-knuckled hand on each door frame, I suss out what could be used as a weapon.  Specifically, what could be used on me, and how.  Objects which could be hurled, pens that stab, cricket bat shaped things.  Cushions could smother, and the ties on blinds could strangle.  And the picture on the wall?  My staring eyes are gauging the weight of my own potential weapon, my mind picturing it leaving my hand Frisbee style, as part of my brain is lamenting the newly polished too-slippery-to-run-on floor. 

Complicating my assessment are the flashbacks certain objects conjure.  A book could be used as a weapon.  I know this because it has previously been used on me. 

Many objects re-tell a story to me from the past.  Often violent. 

One step into a room (my body impeding all foot traffic), I assess escape routes – e.g., one door, three windows (ground floor so an easy jump). 

I carefully map the paths between furniture, estimate the size of my body against the gap under and between desks, beds, chairs, tables. 

I know before I fully enter a room how I can get out, and where I can hide. 

I note whether or not there is a lock on the door, and how flimsy it is likely to be. 

I grit my teeth at unexpectedly renovated rooms, rearranged furnishings.

All of this in seconds. 

A personal evacuation route for a half-anticipated frantic escape.  

Once in a room I try to place myself near an exit (unless I am with ‘safe’ people in which case I will sit almost anywhere).  Generally though, I am that defiant person who refuses to sit in the ‘let’s-bond circle’, repeatedly moving my chair a leg’s length backward.  And the one who rudely hogs the end of a table, feeling trapped.  

My eyes are often the only interactive parts of me as I watch the hands of people in the room, ears alert to the creak of their chair, shuffle of leg crossed over another.  Unnaturally perceptive I can sense the atmosphere before anyone even speaks – I know that there is bubbling trouble here amid the deceptive jollity.  Unnerving for me - not knowing what is wrong, means not knowing what is likely to come next.

Finally, in whatever building I happen to be in, I locate the bin.  My last resort if I am refused food.  I try not to hover, rarely lift the lid to glance inside.

Technology is a blessing.

Unlike 20 years ago, I can now scrutinise online interactive maps and satellite images (thank you Google, my friend), prior to leaving the house – identifying escape routes before I am even there. 

Because, whether it is to someone’s house or elsewhere, going out is a process.  Everywhere I go my brain convincing me that I must be aware at all times of the location of people in the area (and any potential hidey holes – for me or for them).  Crowds are problematic as people dart around like random arrows.  And I have to assume poisonous ones.  I far prefer to do activities where everyone stays seated.  Outside.

Because buildings like shopping centres pose challenges, their sickly lighting and sparkle-blinding glass hiding who knows what, and then there’s the narrow aisles, oversized prams, and cramped seating – hampering my ability to track people, and rapidly vacate.  

So, in a restaurant, feeling trapped in a corner of a table I may quietly swap the position of the knife and fork.  I am right-handed and compared to butter knives, forks likely do more damage.

When threatened, charming I am not.

Casing the joint (disaster preparedness) is a natural process for me – like breathing.  I barely note it, this self-preservation process. 

This slowed breathing and racing eyes, sweat in a cold people-filled room. 

Originally written Dec, 2019