A Mind's Eye Reader

V

VWHERE I SHOWED UP AFTER I walked through that front door didn't make a lot of sense at first.

I was walking around the high school where I first met Sol.

Only I could walk through stuff. Pretty much everything.

Must be purgatory, I figured.

The place looked different. All this new construction that looked old. Which meant some time had passed as well. They'd made some improvements to the school in all that time.

But it still sucked. And the students were still bored. Only now they had more administrators to “take care” of them.

Meaning, it was still a trap.

With a big new Gym, and the buses parked somewhere else. Tennis courts were gone, replaced with some other silly sport.

Where I'd been, I didn't recall. Or didn't want to.

Now I could hear people's thoughts, and send my own to them.

I'd become one of those “mysterious others” that I'd only imagined existed. Meaning I must have come pretty close to the truth.

Or I died somehow and became a ghost.

One of the two.

But I wasn't stuck to the school grounds. I could go anywhere I wanted. And even just by thinking the thought of where I wanted to go. That was cool.

Library was a first stop, of course. They'd made some improvements, too. But the more things change, the more they stay the same. Still lots of books and newspapers. DVDs and CDs now.

Somehow I wasn't surprised by all that.

The question was still: What the H___ happened?

I was in high school, then I'm back as some sort of telepathic ghost.

To my mind, I was still a teenager. But everything else had changed. Since when?

Newspaper date says forty years ago.

Next question: Whatever happened to Sol?

All I recall for sure was turning and walking through my own front door at home. Then showing up at the school again, like I am now.

I sure could use someone to compare notes with.

Forty years, though. He's probably married, had kids. Even grandkids by now. He could have done anything with that mind of his. One in a million or more, like I told him that last night.

All that time ago.

Wonder what he's doing now?

AND THEN I SHOWED UP – just wherever he was.