A Circle or a Star?

Monday morning arrives with ritual precision. I take the river path before the library opens, letting the water's constant flow recalibrate the static left by the weekend's chemical archaeology. The current carries debris and dissolved mysteries downstream with an ancient patience I wish I could absorb.

At the library, I claim my corner bench by the circulation desk, a strategic perch for observing traffic patterns while remaining within the gravitational pull of certain texts. My mission: find archives on oppressed minorities, stories that might map onto my own survival.

Two books find their way into my hands as if by magnetism. The first luxuriates in suffering, a symphony of elegant wound-licking. The second advocates for forward momentum with the brutal efficiency of one who knows that dwelling in historical trauma can become the most insidious prison of all. The dichotomy is a curated choice, a psychological crossroads laid bare on the table before me.

As I absorb the final, decisive sentence of the second book—a clear line drawn between past-fixation and future-orientation—the grey-haired man materializes like a shift in atmospheric pressure. I never saw him enter; he is simply there, signing the register with methodical care.

"Which symbol do you prefer," he asks, no greeting, no preamble, "the circle or the star?"

The code is immediate, crystalline. If you indulge in the past, you remain trapped in this therapeutic loop. Movement requires a direction. Seek the exit. His timing is impossibly precise. The circle: the ouroboros of eternal return, the cyclical processing of pain. The star: a fixed point for navigation, a guide through uncharted territory.

From the opposite shelf, other books call out. One cover, a coastal scene, triggers a cellular memory of the flat by the sea, the epicenter of my family's financial wars. Was I institutionalized there as a child? Are those the gaps my memory filled with the anonymous architecture of treatment facilities?

Another volume calls through its illustration: a sea turtle navigating vast oceans alone. My spirit animal. A creature born without guidance, emerging from the sand to traverse impossible distances on instinct alone. Programmed for solitary endurance.

With my chosen texts secured under my arm, I retreat homeward, carrying these potential revelations like volatile compounds.

At home, I prepare a ritual. The herbal samples that arrived last week, their names, their infusions, their very geometry called to me with electromagnetic certainty. The brewing is a ceremony: precise temperature, measured steeping time, the right ceramic vessel to transform liquid into an event.

The flowered book lies open on my bed, breathing with anticipation. The new acquisitions can wait. Grandmother's voice is rising to the surface, and it demands an audience.

When you arrived in our family, we did not know what to do with you. You were not speaking and you looked so upset, so profoundly sad.

Her voice emerges from the pages like an archaeological dig into suppressed tenderness. It carries the texture of bewilderment mixed with a fierce, protective instinct—the particular helplessness of adults facing a child's damage they cannot comprehend, let alone repair.

At school, the teachers and cafeteria workers targeted you with systematic cruelty. They saw your difference as vulnerability and responded with institutional bullying disguised as discipline. When you couldn't process the sensory chaos of the dining hall, they forced you to sit alone while other children received warm meals and social inclusion.

The memories reconstruct themselves in time-lapse: lunch periods spent in isolation, a spectator to social rituals I couldn't decode. Teachers whose patience turned to sharpness when my literal interpretations produced unexpected results. Cafeteria workers who served smaller portions to the strange child who couldn't meet their eyes.

You stopped eating entirely. For weeks, you would return home having consumed nothing, your small body growing thinner while we tried to understand what invisible force was starving you.

But I found the way to reach you, through cooking. We began with simple recipes, then advanced to complex flavors: sweet, salty, spiced creations that required precise attention to chemical reactions. Your hands learned to measure with scientific accuracy. Your palate developed a sophisticated appreciation for how compounds interact to create novel experiences.

The connection ignites with sudden clarity. My affinity for laboratory work was born in grandmother's kitchen, where precision and chemical combinations produced tangible, delicious results. Cooking was chemistry; chemistry was a communication pathway between my neurodivergent mind and an incomprehensible world.

But the book's tone shifts, piercing the nostalgic reconstruction with a contemporary warning.

There is someone within your team who is not sincere. Someone whose jealousy has calcified into systematic sabotage. Instead of supporting your progress, she works behind invisible curtains to position obstacles between you and success.

The warning activates my internal pattern-recognition software, scanning a lifetime of relationships for the ghost of concealed hostility.

The Ex-Student: Brilliant but unfocused, she attached herself to my research like an intellectual parasite, her questions designed to extract methodological insights rather than foster understanding.

The Childhood Friend: For decades, her messages carried the undertone of competitive assessment, measuring her life against mine with obsessive precision, celebrating my failures with performative sympathy. Her intelligence, trapped in provincial limitations, festered into envy disguised as concern.

17: The village manipulator. Her jealousy was a direct confrontation—stealing affections, orchestrating drama, positioning herself as the alternative to any stability I might build.

28: More subtle. She cultivated the appearance of support while systematically undermining my social connections. Her intelligence had a bitter edge, resenting the freedom in others she lacked in herself.

All of them shared a pattern: intelligence without fulfillment, capability without direction. My neurodivergent directness had blinded me to their competitive hostility until the damage was beyond repair.

The book then introduces another figure, shifting the narrative from defense to potential alliance.

The mysterious entrepreneur who specializes in botanical preparations, teas, herbs, spices—has been observing your progress from a calculated distance. His packages arrive with elegant precision: hand-selected samples, temperature-controlled containers, the black metal water bottle that suggests both luxury and functionality.

This character materializes in my mind with cinematic clarity: silk scarves, vintage automobiles maintained with obsessive care, a polyglot who deploys languages with strategic timing. My age, but carrying the unshakable confidence of generational wealth fused with personal competence.

He moves through exclusive circles with the ease of one who has never faced a barrier, his intelligence consistently rewarded, never undermined. His interest in my situation feels both genuine and calculated—a recognition of exceptional capability, however unconventionally packaged.

The herbal samples are not just gifts; they are evidence of a sophisticated courtship. An intellectual seduction conducted through curated sensory experiences. He understands that my neural architecture responds to precision, quality, to the subtle details others miss.

I sip the tea. It is complex, multiple botanical layers interacting to create an experience that transcends mere consumption. This is someone who speaks my language—the language of molecular combinations, of chemistry as communication.

The black water bottle sits on my counter, a promise of future mobility, a portable system for one whose travels may require independence from all conventional infrastructure.

Somewhere in this network of herbal preparations and elegant vessels, a new player positions himself for contact. Someone whose resources and capabilities might finally match my trajectory, rather than attempting to diminish it.

The flowered book rests beside my teacup. Both are sources of revelation, unfolding according to rhythms I am learning to trust, not control.