Harry's Issues

[intrinsicrandom]

Harry has eidetic memory. This is a blessing and a curse. He remembers everything, pretty much, that he has ever learned. He remembers everything he has ever learned. From quantum structure to the plot of every Hardy Boys novel. From the mechanics of sex and the archetypes of love to the most trivial issue of Cosmo. He remembers everything he has ever learned about anything. One way that he has found to help deal with this is to write it down. It fades, at least a little, if he writes it down. On whiteboards, on paper, on the walls. He writes it down, and that helps. Sometimes.

Sometimes it doesn't help at all. Sometimes it gets him dumped by his girlfriend of three years because he's become trapped in a mass and a mess of information he can't get out of his head fast enough. Locked in his head for hours or days or a week, because his brain has focused on a problem or an equation as well as ten other things that he needs to finish right then or he'll never get anything done. Sometimes it makes him oblivious to everything going on in his personal life, makes him forget to eat or drink. It allows people to take advantage of him, because they think he doesn't really care about much else, if that's all he's doing.

He has a tendency to focus on really trivial things. Like how coffee is grown. Or the origins of coca-cola. Or how to cook an egg in the microwave. Or the lyrics to a specific song, or the words in a particular novel he's read.

It's gotten better, since he came to New Dodge. He's made a lot of connections outside himself, people he knows that try to keep him from getting locked in. But sometimes it still happens. There are things he's learned, since coming to New Dodge, that help him focus his thoughts and brain more. Listening to loud music, or doing various physical and mental tricks to keep him tuned to one thing. But, sometimes it doesn't help at all.

Harry knows down to the last minute, thanks to a running equation in his head, when Something Horrible will happen to him. A Dark Fate. He doesn't know what it is, if it's death or some sort of brain melting stroke or what. But he knows it's coming. In New Dodge, sometimes the time he has goes up or goes down. But he's looking for ways to prolong it.