Thoughts Ch 1

“I wonder if he’s noticed that my hand is sweating.”

“Did I leave the oven on?”

“I should get a dog, maybe a Doberman.”

“What beautiful little girls.”

I quickly glance around, looking for the owner of that last thought. If it had been the voice of some sweet old lady, or a young woman I might not have looked up. Those words were not someone admiring the pair of girls who were running around just a few feet from me. The owner of those particular thoughts had a gravelly voice that sent a shiver down my spine. Those words had more than a hint of malice in them that made me want to grab those little girls and hide. It wasn’t just the words, they were accompanied by images that I would never dream of seeing, let alone thinking about.

            I glance around one more time, looking for anyone who could have thought those horrible things. My eyes finally settle on a greasy looking middle aged man in his thirties. He’s attempting to discreetly watch the girls, standing in the shadows under a tree twenty-five feet away. I take a step in the creep’s direction, Cabo’s leash tugging slightly in his confusion at the sudden change in direction. Sensing my discomfort, my unfailingly loyal blue-nosed pit bull quickly picks up the pace; walking ahead, ears erect, on alert. The man is still staring at the girls, he hasn’t noticed me yet. I listen closely, focusing on him to be sure I’ve picked the right guy. The sick images spewing from his head confirm my suspicions.

            I reach for my cell phone, ready to dial 911 and have the creep removed. Reconsidering, I glance around for the closest pay phone. I find one at the corner of the park, beside the road. I head over to the pay phone quickly with Cabo at my heel, still on the alert. I fish in my pockets for some change and dial the number.

“911 what is your emergency?” the calm voice of the operator comes through the receiver.

“There is a man at North Woodridge Park acting suspiciously and hanging around the playground. He doesn’t have a kid with him and he’s watching the kids from under a tree.”

“We’ll send an officer to check it out. Can I have your name and phone number, please?”

I panic, what’s the point in using a pay phone if I can’t make an anonymous tip?

“My name is Jane Austen,” I say as calmly as possible and hang up.

 I silently laughing to myself. My name is definitely not Jane Austen, and if they call the number I gave them they will be calling my favorite pizza place in town, Maria’s. My name and phone number don’t really matter, I got the job done and an officer will speak to the creepy man and hopefully scare him away from visiting anymore playgrounds.

A quick glance at my phone tells me it’s time to head home. I walk over to the bike rack and unhook my bike. After hooking Cabo up to the bike leash and storing his regular leash in my backpack, I mount up and head for home. Cabo happily runs alongside the bike for the 15-minute ride back home. When we get home I park my bike in the garage. Mom’s car isn’t there yet so she must not be home. If she’s this late she probably won’t be home at all tonight. I shoot her a quick text just to be sure. Five minutes later she calls.

“I’m held up at the office again honey, I’m sorry. I’m probably just going to sleep here tonight if you don’t need me.” She sounds exhausted and I know she’s genuinely sorry she won’t be home. But there’s nothing she can do about it. “There’s leftover curry from last night in the fridge if you get hungry. How was the park?”

“The park was fun as always, Cabo got to run around with that Rottweiler we met last week. Do you mind if I have Sadie and Andy over tonight?”

“That’s fine, rent a movie, it’s on me! Have fun! Goodnight, hun.” Click

I smile and quickly dial Andy and Sadie. They both agree to come over and I go outside and sit in the remnants of the early summer heat and watch Cabo try to catch lightning bugs.

I close my eyes and bathe in the cool quiet and peace of being alone. I can really only relax when I’m totally alone. Relaxing in a public space is strictly forbidden. That means the mind-bending, unending headache of the thoughts of hundreds of people all invading my mind at once. The worries, anger, joy, sadness of all those people shoving their way into my mind. I rarely allow that to happen, not since I learned to control the walls in my head. The headaches started when I was 3, my mom took me to the park and after just a few minutes I was on the ground, screaming. She rushed me to the hospital and the pain just got worse. The doctors had no idea what was going on and eventually sedated me and sent me home. This happened each time we went out to a crowded place and after the third time I was diagnosed with demophobia, the fear of crowds.

At the time, I couldn’t explain that the headaches were from the hundreds of voices thundering in my head. By the time I did explain the voices we had stopped going out as much. The number of voiced lessened and my stories were attributed to an active imagination and imaginary friends. I believed this until I was 8 years old, when I heard the minds of my 12-year old neighbor. He was thinking about hurting his brother’s new puppy. I told my mother and she told me not to lie. 4 months later that boy’s house burned down in the middle of the night, his parents barely escaped with his little brother and baby sister. The firemen found the boy in the basement, his body badly burned because he had been right beside the source of the fire, a pile of paper that spread to the whole house. After that, I kept my thoughts, and others’, to myself.

I didn’t learn to control the stream of thoughts entering my head until I was in middle school. At school I could hear all my classmates’ thoughts all the time, not to mention the thoughts of my teachers; not all of them were thrilled to be teaching elementary students. Because I could hear everyone’s thoughts I found it incredibly difficult to distinguish my own ideas from ones I had overheard. I had to try hard on tests just to use only my own answers and not the answers my classmates came up with. I learned early on that they were wrong as often as they were right and I was better off using my own answers rather than borrowed ones. The result of my hard work was placement in the gifted program and eventually honor roll. I enjoyed learning, especially science. The incident with my neighbor drove me to pursue a career in forensic science, I wanted to put away the bad guys but stay far away from them and their nasty thoughts in the process. I took every science class available and during the summer I enrolled in classes and programs that would help me get ahead.

The constant stream of thoughts was unstoppable until the 8^th grade. I will never forget the day I finally learned to make it stop. I had a killer headache from an assembly in school that morning and I had my headphones blaring in my ears. Music was the only thing that seemed to help me block the thoughts. My headache was slowly getting worse and I was close to tears. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the music. It was Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2, his most popular waltz. I always found it relaxing and listened to it whenever the headaches got really bad. In desperation I tried again to stop the voices pounding in my head. With my eyes still shut I pictured a wall of the sheet music of Chopin’s nocturne going up around the chaotic gymnasium that was my head.

Silence

For the first time for as long as I can remember the only thoughts in my mind were my own. I smiled to myself and relaxed, immediately the walls came down and the voices started leaking back in. Up the walls went. Four years later it still takes a small amount of concentration to keep the walls up. The only time I let the wall completely down is when I’m alone in my own home. I let it slip a bit when I’m somewhere quiet, the park, or the museum. Anywhere where the atmosphere is naturally calming, where people think about their worries less, even if it’s only for a few hours. That’s how I heard the thoughts of the sicko at the park today. I let my walls down so I could relax, with so few people at the park there’s no headache.

I quietly wonder to myself what happened with the man at the park after I left. Did the police get to talk to him or did he slip away before they could get him? My thoughts, and the silence, is interrupted by the doorbell ringing.