Aged Twenty-Two Years:
1-2-3-4-5… 6-7-8-9-10… 11-12-13-14-15…
As she skipped up the stairs to her floor in the dusty hotel, Melody Lowe counted each one, though she already knew exactly how many there would be when she reached the top. She set her foot down hard on the last step, the satisfaction bringing a smile to her face. 48 exactly… of course.
After so many years of grueling training, nausea, and, yes, excruciating pain, Melody had finally become master of herself. Yes, those less pleasant aspects of her ability were still there, but now she could control them. Well, almost. Every once in a while she had a premonition that was too violent or large-scale to shove aside. Those were the worst days of her life, her living nightmares. Though the benefits were considerable: eventually her thoughts had evened themselves out. She could now make a prediction about almost anything- from the weather, to sports scores, to political assassinations, to religious movements in her area.
However, there were other aspects about Melody’s talent, sides of it that were dangerous and frightening. Perhaps the thing she found most difficult, was her incapacity to connect with others. There were so many safeguards around her tired heart that she had essentially handicapped herself in the area of social graces. Although relationships were never the first thing on her mind, she did wonder what it would be like to know anyone intimately, so intimately that she could even reveal her greatest secret.
Then again, perhaps the thing she found worst about being able to see and hear the future was the constant déjà vu she felt every time she walked around a corner she had already seen in her mind’s eye, or dreamt about the night before. Every time she read a book she knew how it would end. She always knew when to take an umbrella with her, when to wear snow boots in cold weather, when to dress heavily or lightly. Melody Lowe would never be seen caught in the rain.
No, she thought to herself, I’m sure that isn’t the worst part. She had contemplated this often, and had come to a decision years ago: the most difficult and agonizing part of clairvoyance was knowing what each and every person she met would do, before they would do it. Simply by brushing a strangers arm in the street, she could see where he was going, whether or not his marriage would last the next few years, if he would keep his job, if a family member of his would pass on, and, the last, but most unbearable thing: she knew how he would die.
Melody reached her hotel room and flopped onto her bed. Her painful thoughts ceased, and she glanced around her diminutive room. There was a worn suitcase in a chair on the opposite side of the room. Her clothes spilled out, and a line of socks, shirts, pants, and skirts littered the entire area. A benefit of never living in the same place for more than a few months was that she wasn’t concerned about tidying up.
She lay on the bed, took out a pack of cigarettes and stared at it. She’d never had a cigarette. But she had bought this pack nevertheless, hoping that one or two of them would ease her suffering. Opening the package slowly, she shook out one of the slender white rolls and lit it with one of the hotel matches. The end smoldered, and she stared into the glare. But she didn’t put it anywhere near her mouth. In the end, she decided to just flush it down the toilet. She tossed the rest of the pack too, while she was at it.
Then she went back into her room and packed. Time to move on. Maybe she would go to the East Coast. That would be exciting. She could travel by bus.
Melody Lowe left the hotel, conveniently “forgetting” to pay the bill. She hoped she could get a job at a local paper when she reached the East. It shouldn’t be hard, since she was a talented writer, and normally had no problem being published.
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