She used a fork to flip the bacon in the pan, probably scratching the finish as she did so. If her mother were here beside her in the kitchen, she’d be flipping her wig, begging her to use a plastic spatula and save the finish on the pan. Her mother would also have something to say about the way Martin had ended up; she certainly had no shortage of ideas when he was a boy. But that was her mother; long on ideas, short on help.
She moved the bacon out of the pan and onto her plate, in the usual spot next to a corn muffin. She poured a glass of grape juice, then took her breakfast over to the dining room table. She flipped on the old black and white set she kept on the table for some company. The volume knob had long since been ripped off the television, leaving her programs at a permanent noise level just slightly below a whisper. That was just as well this morning; the early news was leading once again with Martin’s death. At least they weren’t using the graduation picture; they had instead shown the by-now familiar shot of Martin in his Borazon helmet. She never understood the visor that covered his face, why a boy with such a depth to his eyes would want to cover them up like that. She liked to think that he was hiding them from his mother, that he was ashamed of what he was doing and didn’t want her to know.
But she knew her baby better than that.
The funeral would be tomorrow. She wondered idly what she would wear. Certainly not this bathrobe, even though it was the only thing she had worn for the last week. She had a shapeless black dress hanging in the back of the closet that would be probably be appropriate. It was sleeveless, but Fox-5 said that it would be cool enough for a sweater, so she could probably make it work.
But she wasn’t sure. That was one thing her mother never had any advice for: proper dress for your only son’s funeral.
Not that it even mattered what she would wear. It would be a short, simple graveside service, and she couldn’t imagine who else would be there. Some reporters, of course, and a few of the busier bodies from church, but not many more. Her own mother was some ten years gone, and she hadn’t heard from Martin’s father in twice that long. She didn’t even know how to contact him, and in fact wasn’t even sure if he was still alive to make it down for the funeral. Although, she thought bitterly, he was there at the beginning of Martin’s life; even if that had been the extent of his involvement in their lives, maybe a bookend appearance at the end would be appropriate.
She had no way of knowing if anyone from Martin’s new life would be there. She assumed he wasn’t married, or the police would have gone to his wife to notify her. Some of his coworkers, maybe; his accomplices, to use the police term, or his henchmen, to use the media’s. But maybe not. Their appearance would probably draw a police presence; on the television, the cops always sat in a parked car at the edge of the cemetery with a telephoto lens, eager to capture on film anyone who might provide them with any sort of lead. Surely Martin’s friends had seen these same shows, and would not want to risk it. She hoped that they wouldn’t show. Enough people had found trouble at Martin’s expense the last few years.
She remembered seeing clips from The Mirage’s funeral on the television one afternoon some years ago. The image that stood out the most, both then and now, was one of The Golden Paladin, standing beside the empty grave, wiping away a tear. He lifted up the edge of his mask—not nearly enough to reveal his face, but just enough to slip in a gloved hand and clear his eyes.
That image ran on the front page of nearly every newspaper in the country the next day. Won the Pulitzer the following year; a lot had been made of that picture. But she never saw it that way. She just saw that picture as a man sorry for what he had done, sorry for accidentally taking the life of somebody’s baby.
She had thought about that picture a lot in the last week, wondering if this Hotshot fellow would be coming to Martin’s service. He was, after all, Martin’s very own Golden Paladin. An errant energy blast, the nice young detective had said. Unintentional, and completely regrettable.
She wondered if Hotshot was sleeping well this week, now that Martin was dead. She always said dead, never gone or passed on or passed away. Those were just phrases invented to spare people’s feelings. Martin was hers; she had lost her concern for other people’s feelings a week ago. She had lost a lot of things a week ago.
She finished off the last bite of her corn muffin, then stood to put the empty dishes in the sink. Her appetite was returning, at least; the doctor had said that that would come first, and sleep would follow. So far, so good on that front.
She ran some soapy water over the plate, rinsing off the bacon grease. She supposed that the girls from the church circle would be by soon, and the last thing she wanted to do was leave them with a dirty kitchen. The whole thing was almost over; the girls would be by today, and then probably tomorrow after the funeral. And then that would be it.
The reporters out front would pack up their tents and move on to the next circus. The next family. And when they did, things would go back to last week, and she would no longer be Borazon’s mother.
But she would be Martin’s mother . . . and he would be her baby . . . forever.
-~o~-
Frank Byrns lives with his family in suburban Maryland, where he writes about superheroes, criminals, and baseball. He is the author of four collections of superhero short fiction, including Adonis Morgan: Nobody Special. In a previous life, he served as publisher and editor-in-chief of A Thousand Faces, the Quarterly Journal of Superhuman Fiction. You can visit him online at www.frankbyrns.com .
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The Mind Reader
Shielding Cournoyer
I don’t want to say it’s like thinking. It’s not. It’s more like feeling than thinking. But I don’t feel it in my heart or my body. I feel with my mind. I can taste with my mind, or smell with it. It’s something I’ve done for as long as I know. Someone comes close to me and without always deciding that I want to know more about them, I go into them . . . or they go into me. I don’t know. It’s weird.
I actually had no idea for most of my life that I was reading minds. It might have been daydreaming, it came to me so natural. No one ever made me explain how I knew what I knew about people, so I didn’t think anything of it. Just figured I must be a good judge of character. Rita changed all that.
The first time we met, I was behind her in line at a convenience store. I could see her face and the swell of her breasts reflected in a glass refrigerator.
“Just admit it,” she was arguing with the guy behind the counter. “Just admit that you lied.”
The cashier had one eyebrow raised and the other one scrunched up, like he was really confused but still hoping to make things right. “All I said was, ‘Have a nice day!’”
“Nooo,” said the woman sternly, gripping her hips with both hands. “You said you hoped I’d have a nice day. Which was a lie. You don’t care if my day is nice.”
“Lady, you want to buy that candy bar or just stand there yelling at me some more?”
“Another lie!” The woman said, folding her arms while shaking her head. “I did not raise my voice.”
I leaned close and took her in. Her world was stark and shining, like a water’s edge. Crystal. No color. She’d let nothing hide and nothing stay that wasn’t sharp and cool.
I snapped back into my own reality, gasping. She turned to face me . . . her eyes bright and fractal and gray, like the feel of her thinking.
“Read a dash, read a dash, read a dash,” I muttered. Her mouth opened slowly and I realized I’d done the thing again, where the random stuff in my head comes out through my mouth. “Sorry,” I said. “Just being weird, don’t mind me.”
She turned back to the cashier and I thought she was going to scold him again, but instead she just paid for her candy and left. When I got outside with the orange juice I bought, she was standing right next to the door like she’d been waiting.
“Do you know me?” She asked. “Have we met?”
“What? No
!” I blushed a little because I thought she might be into girls and wasn’t sure if this was a come-on.
“I know you’re telling the truth,” she said. “So tell me how you know my name.”
“I don’t,” I said, grinning. “But it’s nice to meet you. Rahima.” I offered her my hand, but she ignored it.
“You said it three times,” she argued. “You looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Rita Dash, Rita Dash, Rita Dash’.”
“What?” My heart jumped to my throat. “That’s not your name?”
“It is, and don’t expect me to lie about it. That sort of thing goes against my morals.”
“Ok,” I said. “But, Rita . . . I wasn’t even thinking about what I was saying. It was just nonsense babbling I do because I’m nervous and . . . well, you’re pretty.” I blushed again, regretting my boldness.
Rita paused. “Not a lie,” she said. “Not the whole truth, mind, but you’re getting pretty close.” She smiled warmly. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”
I shook her hand, then started laughing like a fucking hyena. I never expected that cheesy line to work. “Sorry!” I said.
“You really are,” said Rita, sounding astonished. “You’re sorry for being heard!”
Her words made tearing sounds in my mind. Somewhere under ordinary clutter my thinking was finding new shapes. “People say I’m weird.”
“They say that because you make them feel weird. Because you tell the truth. It’s what I do, also. But somehow . . . it seems to be a little different with you. As if you can hear the truth before anyone says it out loud. Almost like you can see what’s in peoples’ heads.” Rita gasped suddenly, with her grey eyes on fire. I checked to see if some A-list celebrity was behind me pumping gas. Nope. The something exciting she was looking at was happening between us.
“That’s it!” Rita was talking in that reasonable tone people use when they speak to themselves. “That’s almost the entire truth!” Her eyes locked on mine and she pulled me, by the shoulders, very close. “Read a dash, you said. You said my name but also, you said what you were doing. You read me, just a little. It’s a power, Rahima. You . . . you’re a mind-reader!” Rita screamed, making me jump for cover, but she actually hadn’t been shot. She was jumping up and down and clapping her hands. “I’m right, I’m right, I’m right! I know all about you!”
Imagine that you always had a habit of muttering nonsense words, and then one day somebody tells you that you’ve been speaking German. That’s about how I was feeling.
“Girl!” I said, still hiding behind my hands. “I don’t know you! I’m not reading anybody’s anything!”
“Excuse me,” said Rita suddenly, stopping an exhausted-looking woman who was trying to hurry past us into the XO-mart.
“Yes?” Said the lady, her eyebrows raising with the effort of sounding polite.
Rita said nothing. The stranger’s eyes slowly narrowed. I could feel the rumble of all the things she wanted to hold in stretching the skin on her forehead. Then I was there with the sounds in her mind. Mechanical churning demanded her air. Every clunky chore revolving, banging against the ones before. Nothing in danger of breaking . . . nothing but the loud and pumping need to get on with her day, which stretched itself thin trying to cover up a bigger, cloudy thing. Sinking underneath the clanging patchwork that tried to hide it, I saw something huge enough to take her everything. Scary and maybe good. Filled with parts unknown.
“You’re pregnant!” I shouted, as soon as I’d found my own head.
“Definitely pregnant,” Rita agreed.
The woman’s jaw dropped. “How could you . . . ” She stopped herself, and started again, with her cheeks turning red. “Are you Chelsea’s friends?”
“Sorry,” I muttered. I’d only shouted it out loud because Rita made me realize I had magic.
If she’d never been there and I’d gone into the lady’s head I wouldn’t have known what I was learning. She could have told me later that she was having twins and I would’ve just been like, “I know,” but if you’d asked me how I knew, I couldn’t have told you.
“I’m sorry I shouted,” I said. “We’re psychic. We don’t know Chelsea.”
Rita took my hand without warning and started to run.
“Congratulations, Lucy!” I yelled over my shoulder.
We dashed across the street and through a parking lot, then down some long stone steps into the southern entrance of a shopping mall.
“What are we doing here?” I panted when she finally let me stop by a bench in front of a cell phone kiosk. Groups of strangers jostled each other to avoid the very direct gaze of the salesman. He looked at me and I turned quickly to face the door.
“We’re not interested,” Rita told him flatly, then looked at me again. “I want to know what you know, Rahima. I want you to look into people and tell me what you see.” There was appetite in her eyes when she looked at me. It burned into hunger when she glanced behind me, into the chattering crowd.
“Hold on,” I said quickly. “You didn’t think you were going to take me mind-hopping at the mall?” I could still hear the pregnant lady’s clattering wheels in my head. I worried about getting whiplash if I jumped into anyone else.
“Don’t be scared,” Rita said. “I also have a power. You read me. You know.” She came closer, looking me in the eyes. I felt my stomach drop, and I was there again . . . inside her chiseled crystal, where I could only move in shining lines. “Can’t you feel it?” Her words thundered at me through her perfect tundra. “Can you feel the truth ring? In your skin?” Her atmosphere pinned me down, waiting for its answer. But my voice was somewhere else.
“Not in my skin,” I said hoarsely, jumping back to my body.
Rita’s eyes stayed clear, with the beauty of her mind glaring through them. “What’s your power like, then?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know . . .” I took a few heavy breaths, waiting for something like a crash. Instead, I just kept breathing.
“You don’t know what you know,” said Rita.
I realized that I’d lost every echo that the pregnant woman left in my head. I’d been expecting two peoples’ thinking to weigh my breathing down, but now there was no one else inside me. It was Rita . . . it had to be . . . with her mind like diamond rivers, that washed my clutter out.
“I know you’re special,” I said.
She didn’t care. She wanted to know all about my power. I couldn’t tell her much, since I didn’t even know I had a power until just that very morning. I told her that I hated crowds and that I never came to places like this unless I absolutely had to, and she thought that was me trying to answer her question and stood there talking to herself about whether that was true while chittering packs swarmed past in each direction.
“You can’t control it!” she announced, suddenly pointing at me. “Your power . . . it feels more like a trap to you, doesn’t it? Because you can’t control whose minds take you in! That’s why you hate the mall!”
I blinked, seeing for the first time the way that each person’s consciousness hovered around me like its own little pit of quicksand. It happened to me when someone got too close, exactly as Rita said it did . . . I couldn’t help getting sucked into their thinking. At the end of the day I was always juggling all these different points of view and working hard to sort out who I was.
I said that to Rita, and she wanted to know, “What do you do to keep from going crazy?”
“I get lucky?”
Rita made a derisive fart-sound and I tried again.
“Well,” I said, after thinking. “In big places like this I guess the trick is to see the whole crowd at once, instead of looking at any one person.”
“What if you’re only with a few people? What if you’re stuck on a bus and someone is talking on the phone, or if you’re walking down the street at night and you have to see the people around you?”
Shadows like toasty rain popped up in my vision. I spent a second digging throu
gh some crinkled memories. “I never have to see who’s around me,” I said finally. “Because no matter where I am or who I’m with, I always have my own mind to hide out in.”
“You hide?” Said Rita, with her forehead frowning.
“I mean, my body’s still there, wherever I put it. Just sitting or walking around on auto-pilot. If I’m with a group I can just follow along. It’s kind of risky, I guess, but still safer than getting lost in other people.” Minds are tricky places when you’re not the one in charge. People walk around with ideas that haven’t happened yet, and hopes and fears and memories. It’s hard to tell the difference between what’s real for them and what’s imagination.
Rita tried to understand. She really did. I felt the way her mind chased the bubbles of my explanation until her rivers seemed to drink themselves . . . her crashing merge of opposites, grown gray in its own shadow. In the end her whirling currents kept their paths, sucking me in with all the force of a vortex.
I found my feet again. You couldn’t tell unless you looked very close that Rita had this ferocious hunger in her. She was quiet and still, and looking at the floor. But I saw it in her body how intensely she was listening. I took her hand, feeling all of a sudden protective. Her mind was clear and strong and not afraid of anything. Somehow, that hunger left her wide open.
She looked up when I touched her and grinned. We nudged our way into the crowd, looking for I don’t know what. Before we’d gone very far two kids on leashes went racing by, followed by their mother . . . holding both cords in one hand and cackling into her cell phone. She wore glasses that were red like magma, and in her thinking, boiled-hard, were gridwork promises. They tried to choke so many whispers that rose like steam from craters deep inside.
“Locket me, Locket me, ” I muttered.
“Look at me,” said Rita, her eyes pulling me out of myself and into her sharp focus. Then we both started laughing, because we realized the thing she said and the thing I said were the same.
The Good Fight 4: Homefront Page 17