When he was young he used to play with the smaller kid next door.
The smaller kid was happy about that, as he wasn’t popular with others of his age. In fact, most of the time they were downright unkind to him. The kid was an easy target. This was mainly because he had a lot of stuff going on. His constant facial tics were the most noticeable, like rapid blinking, but he had other things on the go. Like the clicking noise he used to make with his teeth and the cracking of his knuckles.
There were a whole lot of sudden, uncontrolled body movements, some of which could really take you by surprise. Like the twitching of the shoulders and the obsessive slapping of the knees, the head jerking, earlobe scratching, foot tapping, throat clearing and nail biting; and of course, there was always the grunting and the sniffing.
Now, all these years later, with a medical degree and a fair slice of life behind him, he looked back, remembering the kid next door… with a kindly understanding.
All these things were simply ways for him to cope with him being him.