son of God or something. None of which applied to Alice. She, she wasn't crazy, because she knew for an absolute fact that she was mentally ill.
Alice had been diagnosed with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and suffered from temporal lobe seizures. Electrical misfires in her brain made her see, hear, and experience strange things. And when she wasn't having an active seizure episode, she had a classic case of Geschwind's syndrome, in particular problems with her temper, hyposexual tendencies, hypergraphia, and hyperreligiosity.
And here was why Alice wasn't crazy. She knew for an absolute fact that the visions she experienced were caused by seizures in her temporal lobe. An EEG had proved it. What Alice also knew, though, was that her visions weren't merely the result of abnormal electrical activity in the temporal lobe, stimulating the visual and auditory centers of her brain. Instead, the seizures themselves were being caused by something outside herself, and the visions she received were messages intended for her alone.
So it could have been God giving her the seizures and making her see visions, or it could have been aliens, or Queen Titania of Fairyland, or a superintelligent computer at the end of time, or any one of a thousand different things. All that Alice knew was that the visions were real , and that she had to do as she was told.
Which, so far as she'd been able to work out, involved coming to London and going up in the London Eye. There was something about ravens in there, as well, and some guy she'd never seen before. But after that it all got a little hazy.
Alice hoped that things looked clearer from the top of the Ferris wheel. Because even though she was in London, half a world away from home, things from the ground still looked more than a little indistinct.
It was when she almost got into a fistfight over the empty soda bottle that Alice realized that she was getting a bit tense. She'd had problems controlling her temper for years, ever since the first accidentânot the other accident, the one that no one at school liked to talk about, but the earlier one, when the only ones Alice had managed to hurt were her own familyâbut being aware of the problem didn't make it any easier to handle. The doctors said that it was an aspect of her personality disorder, of her interictal behavior syndrome, which was a fancy way of saying that people with TLE had a tendency to be a mite off even when they weren't having seizures. All cases were different, but in Alice's, it meant that she had a tendency to fly off the handle with little provocation. And when she had major provocation? Well, watch outâ¦
Alice had found a bank that was willing to swap her American dollars for British pounds, since so many of the shops refused to take her bills. After, that is, the first three banks refused. So a number of shops refusing her bills and then a number of banks refusing to change them, all in the attempt to get something to drink. Water, juice, soda, anything. She was desperate. She'd gone a few blocks from the Paddington Underground Station when she realized she'd had nothing but a couple of mouthfuls of water in the last few hours, and after smoking a cigarette at the airport and another couple while walking through the city, her mouth felt about as parched as a Texas highway in the middle of August.
With her nice American bills changed for strangely multicolored British currency that seemed like it belonged with a board game like Monopoly or something, she went into the nearest store and bought a bottle of Pepsi. She picked up a bag of potato chips while she was at itâ crisps , the package saidâsince she'd not had much to eat, either. Then she wolfed down the chips as she continued walking, taking big gulps of the soda now and again.
The chips were good, but strangeâ lamb & mint flavor?âbut the Pepsitasted about like the ones back home. When she'd finished, Alice went looking for somewhere to
Alice had been diagnosed with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and suffered from temporal lobe seizures. Electrical misfires in her brain made her see, hear, and experience strange things. And when she wasn't having an active seizure episode, she had a classic case of Geschwind's syndrome, in particular problems with her temper, hyposexual tendencies, hypergraphia, and hyperreligiosity.
And here was why Alice wasn't crazy. She knew for an absolute fact that the visions she experienced were caused by seizures in her temporal lobe. An EEG had proved it. What Alice also knew, though, was that her visions weren't merely the result of abnormal electrical activity in the temporal lobe, stimulating the visual and auditory centers of her brain. Instead, the seizures themselves were being caused by something outside herself, and the visions she received were messages intended for her alone.
So it could have been God giving her the seizures and making her see visions, or it could have been aliens, or Queen Titania of Fairyland, or a superintelligent computer at the end of time, or any one of a thousand different things. All that Alice knew was that the visions were real , and that she had to do as she was told.
Which, so far as she'd been able to work out, involved coming to London and going up in the London Eye. There was something about ravens in there, as well, and some guy she'd never seen before. But after that it all got a little hazy.
Alice hoped that things looked clearer from the top of the Ferris wheel. Because even though she was in London, half a world away from home, things from the ground still looked more than a little indistinct.
It was when she almost got into a fistfight over the empty soda bottle that Alice realized that she was getting a bit tense. She'd had problems controlling her temper for years, ever since the first accidentânot the other accident, the one that no one at school liked to talk about, but the earlier one, when the only ones Alice had managed to hurt were her own familyâbut being aware of the problem didn't make it any easier to handle. The doctors said that it was an aspect of her personality disorder, of her interictal behavior syndrome, which was a fancy way of saying that people with TLE had a tendency to be a mite off even when they weren't having seizures. All cases were different, but in Alice's, it meant that she had a tendency to fly off the handle with little provocation. And when she had major provocation? Well, watch outâ¦
Alice had found a bank that was willing to swap her American dollars for British pounds, since so many of the shops refused to take her bills. After, that is, the first three banks refused. So a number of shops refusing her bills and then a number of banks refusing to change them, all in the attempt to get something to drink. Water, juice, soda, anything. She was desperate. She'd gone a few blocks from the Paddington Underground Station when she realized she'd had nothing but a couple of mouthfuls of water in the last few hours, and after smoking a cigarette at the airport and another couple while walking through the city, her mouth felt about as parched as a Texas highway in the middle of August.
With her nice American bills changed for strangely multicolored British currency that seemed like it belonged with a board game like Monopoly or something, she went into the nearest store and bought a bottle of Pepsi. She picked up a bag of potato chips while she was at itâ crisps , the package saidâsince she'd not had much to eat, either. Then she wolfed down the chips as she continued walking, taking big gulps of the soda now and again.
The chips were good, but strangeâ lamb & mint flavor?âbut the Pepsitasted about like the ones back home. When she'd finished, Alice went looking for somewhere to
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