Mind Reader

I had this idea... So I did it. Tell me what you think! 

Note to reviewers: As usual, please don't nitpick. I'm looking for opinions that will help my writing, and this story, be better as a whole. Also as usual, this story will not be in chapters. It will be in parts- that is, chunks of story that I randomly publish when I need encouragement, or when I write...enough. So beginnings and endings are irrelevant. 

:)

M. R.s are everywhere. They’ve always been here. They’ve grown up with us.

When you live around one, it’s pretty easy to tell. There are warning signs- They learn to speak faster than normal, walk earlier, cry more and sleep more. And then they start asking creepy questions.

You’ll be sitting at the wooden table in the corner of the room by the window and wishing you had some food in front of you and the kid, maybe one or two years old, will toddle up to you and say, quite clearly, “I’m hungry.”

Now, kids get hungry. Even little kids, even very young ones. Food, shelter, sleep, that’s all they want. Maybe yours is just precocious, you think.

Then they say other things. Words they’ve never heard aloud before. That they can’t possibly have read. Because they don’t know how to read.

Terrifying. Transparent. Condescending. Hover. Spongy. Stunning. Honeysuckle.

And lots of swear words, of course, because of the incomparable frequency and sharpness of them. 

“What’s...what’s...war?” the little monster will ask, in between hiccupping breaths. "It’s so scary…” Like they know, like they know everything. That’s when you get worried, and you suspect, and you have to tell them. You have to tell them to hide themselves.

Well, that’s what I was told. And I was confused.

“Why?” I said. “What is so distinct about me from anyone else? What did I do wrong?”

I was told, immediately, not to say that word. Because I was four years old, and I wasn’t supposed to know what ‘distinct’ meant.

“But you said that I’m supposed to use the knowledge I acquire, to express myself!”

No. Not like this. I could only use the knowledge that I’d heard. Or read, or seen, with my own eyes.

“Why?” I said again. I didn’t understand. Not at all, then.

Because nobody likes a mind reader.

I was found out anyway. If you’re suspected, you have to take a test, usually in elementary school. That’s where most MRs screw up, before they get careful. It’s hard to keep everything, everybody’s minds, in such a tiny body.

Anybody who is Non-MR doesn’t understand what it’s like. You all think thoughts are linear, strings of words that go from right to left. Just like reading a book. But it isn’t. It isn’t at all.

Thoughts are a mess. They’re jumbled and knotted, and they mostly aren’t words. The words are embedded, entwined, in blurry images and pure feelings that are like toxic fogs, and dominate everything else. It’s hard to find any meaning in a person’s mind, MR or not, because of how messy it all is. You have to have to be really intelligent to be able to pick out more than strong feelings and the occasional floating, lone word that sticks out among the clutter. But NMRs don’t understand. They don’t understand how complicated things are, and they don’t want to. So they separate us as soon as they can... because they’re scared.

I took the test in second grade. There’s checklists for the teachers to follow. One for each student in the class. It looks like this:

Characteristics of the Mind-Reading Juvenile

• the child displays a range of language that is unusually advanced for its age. *
• the child appears to be introverted- it enjoys spending it’s free time alone, or with adults, as opposed to with other children.
• the child tends to avoid eye contact.
• The child appears to often feel depressed, or blue, for seemingly no reason.
• The child may be (mis)diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder.
• The child does not react well in test environments.
• The child shows excessive and unexplainable levels of fatigue.
• The child has an aptitude for the arts, especially music.

*Notice the ‘it’.

So the deal is, teacher checks off four boxes or more, and you take the MR exam. And it really isn’t that hard to get drafted. You just have to be nerdy, shy, and antisocial. So around five out of twenty-five take it, every class, every year.

You hardly need it. Whoever isn’t what is suspected of them look annoyed, and a little bit hurt. Because everyone knows the problem kids are the ones that got checked out. All the ones that don’t fit in.

And the kids that are, really are, MRs, just look scared as hell. Damnit, they think, with their second-grade minds(curses are very clear. First words with a lot of MRs. I’m not kidding). Damnit, shit, I got found out. Mom’s going to kill me. Mom’s going to cry.

That’s what I thought. Damnit, Rachel. Damnit. What an imbecile you are.

I must’ve looked scared as hell. And no one else, no one else sitting at the table in the exam room, was this scared-I could feel it- except the disheveled, plain-looking boy across from me named Alvis.

He didn’t look like it. He had assumed the slightly pissed, mild expression of the rest of the crowd, looking politely, shyly, at the tabletop. He tapped a rhythm with his fingers.

Crap. Oh God. Shit, shit.

The familiar, crisp loud swear words, almost like my own thoughts. Just like the parent responsible for him. The scared, silent cursing, for being burdened by...this.

And I immediately felt at ease. I hadn’t noticed him before, that he was like me, but now, with this mercifully small group of minds, waiting to be sentenced, I could sense it. And I felt, I felt, with my own young, tired, intruded-upon heart… a small bloom of joy. I might have smiled.

Alvis felt it, even staring downward. I could tell. Recognition is a more obscure emotion to read, but it was so strong in him, and so...searching. The gears, the fogs, of his mind, turned faster, although he didn’t react outwardly. He was good, I thought. What a smart kid.