by Lauryn April
“Alright everybody,” Mrs. Rochester said gaining our attention, “Since it’s Friday, I thought we’d do something a little more fun. Now next week we’re going to be diving back into Freud so study up this weekend. For right now, though, I want everyone to partner up with the person next to them. We’re going to look at a particular experiment often seen in Parapsychology and I think once we’re done you’ll all understand why this is a pseudoscience.”
I looked to both sides of me to pick my partner. On my left was Timothy Nelson. He was currently sniffling. He looked like he had a cold and was cleaning his glasses with the end of his shirt; not an ideal choice. On the other side of me sat Brant Everett. I turned my desk toward Timothy. He seemed surprised, but said nothing. The rest of the room partnered up and then Mrs. Rochester was handing out what looked like playing cards, but she was only giving maybe four or five to each group.
“I wonder what we’re doing,” Timothy said when she handed him our cards. He held them up and we both looked at them. There were five of them. They were black on one side and on the other there was a shape.
“These are called Zener cards,” Mrs. Rochester explained. “They were used to test psychic ability, specifically for telepathic communication.”
My ears perked up and I looked more closely at the cards. They each displayed a different shape. One was a star; another was a circle, a square, a plus sign and then squiggly lines.
“The idea was if a person could guess with any amount of accuracy what was on the card being held up that they contained some kind of psychic ability. We’re all going to test one another today. With your partner, randomly hold up a card so they can’t see what it is and have them guess the shape on the back. Do this twenty times each and I expect all of you to record your results. We’ll discuss them at the end of the class.”
This was it, I thought. This was how I could test what had been happening to me. For a moment I felt myself freeze up, my eyes focused on the cards and I bit my lip. It was scary to think that my thoughts about what had been happening to me could be confirmed. It was also equally scary to think that they wouldn’t be. I quickly snatched the cards from Timothy.
“You first,” I said and proceeded to test him.
I would hold up a card and he’d guess. It was all very simple. I kept a tally of how many he got right and how many he got wrong. He answered incorrectly much more then did correctly, but still he’d get excited whenever he’d get one right. By the time we did this twenty times, he had only gotten excited over his answer maybe three or four times. Then we switched. I handed him the cards and felt my whole body stiffen with anxiety. I took a deep breath trying to undo the knots that were starting to form in my muscles as he shuffled them. He held a card out to me. I stared at the black back of the card and sighed. I heard nothing. For a moment I felt the frustration start to set in, and then something came to me.
I wonder why they picked squiggly lines. They coulda used like a triangle or something.
“Squiggly lines,” I said and his eyes lit up.
“You’re right.” He marked it down on the sheet and picked another card. Alright a square, let’s see if she gets this one.
“Square,” I said and he flipped the card around to show me I was right.
“Two in a row.” No way she’ll get three, he thought and picked another card, star.
I continued to guess right and I could tell that Timothy was starting to get a little freaked out. I didn’t stop though. This was my proof, I needed this. If I couldn’t guess right then the only other answer was that I was crazy. So I kept listening to his thoughts and I kept guessing correctly. I didn’t realize that we’d gone through more than twenty cards. I didn’t realize that I’d attracted an audience. I was focused. I was listening.
“Dude, she’s totally got ESP,” I heard someone say then and I stopped.
I looked around. The groups nearest us were all looking at me. The two girls behind us had their eyes glued to me, as did the two jocks in the row in front of us. I looked behind me and saw that even Brant had noticed and was looking at me like I was some kind of sideshow freak. I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment and my mind rushed to find an excuse to explain why I could do what I did. All I knew was that I couldn’t tell them the truth. I couldn’t tell anyone the truth. I may have convinced myself that I wasn’t completely nuts, but I wouldn’t be able to convince anyone else of it.
“How’d you do that?” the girl behind me asked.
My jaw dropped open and I felt my voice wedge in my throat as if I were choking on my words. I raced for something to say. I looked to Timothy, who was cleaning his glasses again, and it hit me.
I laughed nervously, “I um… I could see the reflection of the cards in his glasses.”
“Oh!” the girl said and laughed. So did Tim. “I knew it had to be something. Geez, you had us all going.”
“Yeah,” I said and looked around. Everyone appeared to buy my lie. The guys in front of us turned back around and so did Brant on the other side of me. Before he did, though, he gave me an odd look and I couldn’t help but think that he seemed skeptical of what I’d said. It was then that I noticed his partner, Jenny Richter, had glasses as well.
We discussed our results for the rest of class. No one mentioned mine. Instead Mrs. Rochester pointed out that we all had on average a twenty percent success rating and thus none of us were clairvoyant. My success rating, of course, had been one hundred percent. We talked about different types of extra-sensory perception including telepathy, and Mrs. Rochester was quick to point out that she didn’t think any of these abilities were real. I, however, knew differently, having finally been convinced.
The rest of that night I continued to hear people’s thoughts here and there. I began to realize that I couldn’t control it. It was easy to listen for the voices, but impossible to block them out. I didn’t know how, but it hadn’t started to bother me yet. Mostly what I heard were random snippets, like the pieces of conversation or lyrics you hear when flipping through radio stations. A girl complaining in her mind about having to run in gym class, a boy having an inner monologue about the way some girl’s boobs bounced as she ran. Most of it was trivial, some of it annoying. In study hall, I listened as someone kept repeating the chorus to Another One Bites the Dust. Even in their head they sang off key and with terrible rhythm. At home I heard Mom listing off bills she had to pay in her mind and Sadie wondering if Dad would take her to the park that weekend. After dinner, I spent the rest of my night in my room. Sitting in there alone I heard no one and welcomed the quiet. I’d heard enough thoughts for one day.
5
Going Against the Current
On Saturday I wore the blue dress. I didn’t care if Christy only thought it looked okay on me. I liked it. It was a dark royal blue, short with spaghetti straps. It was simple but it fit well. I had spent the earlier part of Saturday in my room avoiding the voices that I knew I’d hear if I went around my family. I called Tiana and helped her with her math homework then finished the rest of the reading I had for Lit. By eight, I was dressed and waiting for Christy to arrive. She had called around seven saying that she, Steve and Alex would be there in an hour to pick me up. I was nervous, not so much for being around
the boys and having Christy push Steve onto me as a potential love interest, but because I was unsure of what I would hear. Since coming downstairs I hadn’t heard a single voice, but I wasn’t optimistic enough to think that I wouldn’t hear any that night.
A short while later, Alex’s Mercedes pulled up and I got in the back seat. It smelled of leather and cologne, thick and musty, like ginger and fresh cut wood. Steve was sitting in back with me and Christy was in the passenger seat. We were headed to the beach to have a small bonfire and watch the waves roll in. I was expecting a relaxing, fun night. I wouldn’t get one.
“So, what do you like to do for fun?” Steve asked me on our way there.
He, not so smoothly, reached his h
and across the back of the seat behind my back. I wanted to roll my eyes, but was glad that it was only his outward cheesy moves that had my attention and that I hadn’t, at least not yet, heard his inner intentions.
“I mean other than hitting up house parties and going to the beach with handsome guys like us.”
I laughed, “Handsome, huh?”
“Oh most definitely. So what do you like? Play any sports?”
“Not so much. I got into volleyball for a while. It was fun, but I never was good enough to make varsity so I gave it up.”
“Volleyball, well maybe we’ll have to get a game going the four of us.”
I smiled genuinely when he said that. I had really liked playing volleyball my freshman and sophomore years, but I liked to play the sport for fun and after a while the long practices and heavy competitiveness that was known of all Alta Ladera sports started to make the game less of a game to me and more of a chore. My friends had never understood why I quit. To them it was important to be involved in school activities; to me it was about doing what I enjoyed. It was nice to think about playing again just to play. I was starting to feel like maybe it would be a good night.
Once we reached our destination, the four of us made our way toward the fire pit. The dry sand slowed me down as I tried to run along the beach. Christy and Alex were up ahead of Steve and me, working on getting a fire going. Steve was carrying a six pack of Coors Light and I had a bottle of White Zin courtesy of Christy’s mom’s wine rack. We looked on at Christy and Alex in the distance as they struggled to get a flame going.
“Looks like Alex has forgotten how to work a lighter,” Steve said.
“Yeah, they’re not doing so good over there.” I smiled.
I think we need to get everything heating up a little more around here, I heard him think and my smile faded a little. “By the way, you look really good in that dress,” he said.
“Thanks,” I replied and couldn’t help but smile again, until I heard something else.
It’ll look better when I get it on the floor though.
I started to walk with a greater distance between us after that. I barely knew Steve. We’d only met a few weeks earlier at Nicolette’s party and he already thought he could… what? Get somewhere with me? It was starting to be obvious exactly what these two USULB college freshmen wanted with two high school juniors.
Christy and Alex had just gotten the bonfire going when Steve and I reached them. Its flames clawed their way up to the sky and cast their faces in orange light. Christy was sitting beside Alex in the sand and he had his arm around her. I hovered uncomfortably for a moment as Steve set down the beer. He plopped down in the sand and I hesitated not wanting to sit beside him. I was out for a fun night with friends and he seemed to want something more and so did Alex.
God this girl has great legs, Alex thought as he eyed my friend.
“Come on, Ivy, sit down,” Christy said, glaring at me. Don’t be antisocial, you’re going to embarrass me, I heard her think.
“Right, yeah,” I mumbled and sat down between her and Steve.
She snatched the bottle of wine out of my hands with a smile and pulled out the already loosened cork. I heard it pop then watched her take a long sip. Steve leaned across me to hand Alex a beer, and Christy handed me the bottle once she was done. I stared at it for a moment then looked to Christy. Her eyebrows rose and she looked at me with expectation. I took a sip from the bottle.
“So,” Alex said, “how about we get some kind of game going?”
“Drinking game?” Christy asked. She beamed a smile at him.
“Oh, Flip, Sip or Strip,” Steve said.
“Strip?” I asked in a suspicious tone and shifted my weight in the sand to pull my dress down over my knees.
“Yeah, well you don’t have to strip,” at least not right away, he added in his mind. “It’s easy, you just…” he pulled a quarter out of his pocket. “Flip, call out heads or tails before it hits the ground and if you’re right, just pass the coin.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Then you either take off a piece of clothing or take a pull of your girly wine there.”
I looked down at the wine bottle in my hand and thought that it might be alright. I had never had problems playing drinking games in the past. I was quite good at beer pong actually.
“But,” Alex added, “You can’t do the same thing more than twice in a row.”
I watched Christy read the look on my face, “Come on, it’ll be fun,” she said before I could object.
“Alright.”
Steve smiled and flipped the coin first. He called out tails and I leaned in to look at where the coin had hit in the sand. It was heads. I watched then as he took a long sip of his beer. He handed me the coin. I tossed it up into the air and called heads. I bit my lip as it tumbled back down to the ground.
God, I hope it’s tails. I heard Steve think. It distracted me for a moment. Damn, he then thought and I looked down at the coin to see that it was as I had called it.
Christy went next and ended up having to take a pull of the wine which she seemed happy to do. When Alex was up, he guessed wrong as well but opted to lose his shirt instead. Christy flashed me a pleased look.
Older guys are so much better looking, I heard her think, and then the coin was passed back to Steve.
He guessed right. Then it was back to me.
I hope she starts losing, I heard him think as he handed me the coin, I’ve got four girls back on campus that I can get naked in half this time.
I froze. My hand gripped the quarter as the heat from the fire licked my knuckles. I didn’t flip the coin. I didn’t want to. Everyone stared at me as I sat there unmoving.
“Ivy,” Christy said. “Flip it.”
She’s not even as hot as Rachel, Steve then thought, but hopefully she’ll be a good lay.
“I can’t,” I said and stood up. “I have to go.”
Christy’s eyes were huge and she flushed bright red with humiliation. I walked away from them and started to make my way back to the parking lot. My feet dug into the soft sand and I clenched my fists so tightly that my nails were digging into my palms. I was hurt and angry, mad at what I’d heard Steve think about me and mad for the fact that I knew what he was thinking.
“Ivy!” Christy called and I turned around to see her catching up behind me. “What the hell are you doing?”
The guys were still sitting around the fire down the beach.
“Christy you don’t know… these guys don’t care about us… they just…”
“Oh come on Ivy, just ‘cause our parents tell us that ‘guys only want one thing’ doesn’t make it true about all guys. Alex and Steve are really cool, and hot, and if you mess this up for me I’m gonna be so mad at you.”
“I’m sorry Christy, I don’t feel comfortable with these guys. I’m going home. You can either come with me or stay here, but I’m not staying.”
Her face grew rosy again, making her look like a spoiled child being told ‘no’ for the first time.
“Fine, be lame. I’m going back to the bonfire to do damage control and try to salvage my date. Don’t expect me to ever ask you out with me again.” She turned away from me with a flip of her hair and stormed off back down the beach.
I walked home alone.
At home, I went straight to my room and pulled out my laptop. I needed to know more about why I could hear people’s thoughts. Knowing what people were thinking wasn’t just interesting or annoying anymore; it was starting to interfere with my life. I wondered on my walk home if my night would have gone better if I couldn’t read minds. If I didn’t know what Steve had been thinking, would I have found him charming? Would I have stayed and had a fun time? Would I have ended up getting drunk and doing something I would have regretted? I shook my head. I didn’t want to be grateful for my newfound gift. I was mad and frustrated at being able to know what people were thinking, but more so I hated that I couldn’t just hav
e told Christy exactly what I’d heard. I hated that I couldn’t explain why I left the beach.
I sat on my bed; my yellow comforter wrapped around my waist, with my laptop before me and pulled up a browser window. I went to the search bar and typed in telepathy. I scrolled through the generated list of web pages and read through a definition as given by Wikipedia. I concluded that what I was experiencing was in fact transference of thoughts from other people to me, but that didn’t explain why. I went back to the search engine and glossed past links to various superheroes and comic books. There were links to movies and books, entries for New Age self-help books dedicated to ‘discovering the inner you’ and listings for psychic hotlines. After a few pages of finding nothing to offer me any real answers, my shoulders dropped and I let out a huff of defeat.
I felt like I had been cursed. I didn’t know how to control what I was doing, didn’t know how to escape it. I had the ability to see into people’s private thoughts and yet I felt like I was the one being violated. I felt like I could never again have mystery in my life; never again let people tell me things when they were ready. Everyone around me would be wearing their hearts on their sleeves, they’d be entrusting me with secrets they never told me, they’d be letting me in to their deepest desires and worst fears just by thinking them around me. The ability to judge people not only for who they are on the outside but for the things they think, for the things they keep to themselves, was frightening. I found myself with an ability and a responsibility I’d never wanted and the worst thing about it was that I didn’t even know why.
I went back to the search engine and typed in the only other thing I could think to type- swimming pool accident. At first I found nothing that really related to what I wanted to know, but I wasn’t expecting much. There were a number of news articles about various accidents. Small children drowning when left unattended, a woman becoming paralyzed during a party, but nothing related to acquiring strange abilities after an accident. I tried a different search term. Hit head on bottom of pool, I typed. Then I found one article that I thought might help me understand. I clicked on the link and began to read the article. It was about a man who hit his head at the bottom of a swimming pool and woke up with astounding piano skills. Before his accident he’d never even played the piano, but after he was an instant concert pianist. He still can’t read music, but he can play it.
