Mystic PenBilly was psychic for a whole month once.
He first noticed one afternoon when he was doing his homework. He had to write a paragraph about the respiratory system, and his mom had told him he wasn’t allowed to watch TV until it was done. He didn’t want to write the paragraph, because he didn’t know anything about the respiratory system. He knew there were lungs, and they expanded to draw air in and contracted to push it out, but he couldn’t remember anything his teacher had told him about how they worked, and he didn’t want to read the stupid boring biology textbook that confused him more than it helped anyway.
But Mom was watching, and the faster he finished the paragraph, the sooner he could go sit in a room by himself and watch a cartoon. (Billy’s mother never let him watch cartoons in the same room as her, due to complaints about the shrill voice acting.) So Billy took his binder out of his backpack, opened to a blank piece of paper, and started trying to write. He couldn’t think of what to say, so he opened the stupid boring biology textbook and flipped around until he found a diagram of lungs. He tried to read it, but it seemed to actually be talking about the circulatory system, not the respiratory system, so he closed the book with a sigh.
Oh well, he thought,
it doesn’t matter if what I write is accurate, as long as I write something.
He grabbed a pen out of his backpack and started writing.
“The re...”
His stupid pen was running out of ink. He scribbled in the margins of his page to see if he could get the ink to flow, but all he achieved was the creation of several scribbly indentations.
“Mom, I’m gonna get a pen out of your desk, okay?”
“Sure, just don’t touch anything else that’s in there.”
Billy’s mother was a therapist, and her desk was where the patient files were kept. Billy had been indoctrinated against violating doctor-patient confidentiality by reading them for as long as he could remember. He didn’t even look at the folders in the drawer he opened. They were shut, with no identifying information visible, but kept his eyes off them anyway. Blindly reaching into the drawer, he grabbed one of his mom’s pens and returned to work.
“The respiratory system includes...” Well, the ink was a little runny, but at least this one worked.
“...the trachea and the lungs, and serves to bring necessary chemicals, primarily oxygen, into the bloodstream, as well as expelling waste, primarily carbon dioxide.” As Billy wrote, all the information about the respiratory system came back to him. He found that he could remember facts that he must have heard in class or somewhere, even though he couldn’t have been paying much attention at the time. In a few minutes he’d written nearly a full page, and even though he could have gone on, he figured it would be more rewarding to watch TV. “Okay, Mom. I’m finished,” he said, putting his homework in his backpack.
His mom looked up from the book she was reading. “See? I keep telling you these things are easy once you sit down and do them. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Billy just shrugged and went to his room.
The next day he had to take a math test. He couldn’t find a pencil, so he grabbed a pen. It was the same one he’d used last night. Before he could look for something less smudgy to use, the test was starting and he had to keep his backpack on the floor and his eyes on his desk.
The test turned out only slightly messy. It would have been more so, but Billy didn’t make a single mistake. Normally doing a math test in pen would be a bad decision, because he’d have to cross things out or write new numbers over old numbers, but every time he he noted anything it was precisely what he’d meant to note. When he was finished, he found that only half the time had passed, and he’d have to sit quietly while waiting for the rest of the class.
Mr. Landen suggested he take the time to work on writing.
I never realized finishing early was so boring. The next time I take a test I’ll try to go more slowly. At least I’m not as bored as Mr. Landen. He’s been teaching this same grade for 15 years now. It’s not what he wanted to do; he wanted to own a music store. He hasn’t even picked up a guitar in the last year, let alone sold a nice vintage one to someone who’d appreciate it (or someone with more money than sense who wouldn’t know what to do with it). If he’d just kept up with it, maybe he could give lessons, but he’s too out of practice now. He can’t even get the music teacher job here; they need someone who majored in music, not someone who’s parents insisted he’d never get a job if he followed his dreams, so why not major in Education, because if ever there’s was money to be made, it’s in TEACHING, that’s for sure. They probably expected him to become a school commissioner or something, not to stick at the bottom of the barrel, teaching kids who didn’t want to be there about things he didn’t care about. Next summer he should just take off, leave no forwarding address, and start a new life in one of the non-contiguous states.
Billy was shocked at what he had written. It was like he’d seen straight into Mr. Landen’s mind, like he was writing Mr. Landen’s thoughts. He wasn’t even certain what non-contiguous meant.
Time to test this thing out. Billy looked over at Sam, who was still taking the test. Focusing on Sam, he started to write again.
Sam is tired he didn’t sleep enough last night his dog kept waking him up 243X54, 12 carry the one, 16 plus one is 17 carry the one, eight plus one is nine but you didn’t have to cuuut me oooofff, make it like it never happened and like we were nothing... Placeholder zero, three times five is 15 carry the one, four times five is 20 plus one 21 carry the two...
Billy put the pen down. The jumbled information he was getting out of Sam was much less organized and more stressful than when he’d inadvertently tapped into Mr. Landen. Also he didn’t want to relive the test he’d just taken.
One point was subtracted from Billy’s grade for taking the test with a pen instead of a pencil, but other than that he got a perfect score.
***
“Dan! Carol! It’s so good to see you. And Mary! You’re taller every time we meet. Billy’s in his room. You should go hang out with him before dinner.”
Mary knocked on her cousin’s door. “Hey, Silly. You hiding anything from me?”
In the background, the grownups continued their conversation. “Dan, I was wondering... I know you do calligraphy, and I have a bunch of spare reservoirs for a fountain pen... would you have any use for them?”
“Sure, I’ll probably run into a use for ‘em in the next couple of months. Why’d you wind up with them, anyway?”
Billy opened the door. “I’m not hiding anything. I just didn’t want to look at you, Scary.” Neither one of them was sure how serious their cantankerous relative act was. They’d been keeping it up since as early as either of them could remember. “Hey, you want me to show you something cool?”
“If you say it’s cool, I’m not sure it’s something I want to see.”
“I promise it’s nothing bad. Here.” He grabbed a piece of paper and his pen. “Ask me anything.”
“Okay. Why are you such a lizard-brain?”
“I mean something FACTUAL. Ask me where Timbuktu is, or what’s the capital of Azerbaijan or when Disneyland opened. Something like that.”
Mary thought for a moment. “Uh... how far is it from here to Toronto?”
Billy wrote for a moment. “The distance from here to Toronto is two thousand, one hundred and forty-eight miles.”
Mary put her hands on her hips. “Is that true?”
“It is.”
“How am I supposed to know you didn’t just make that up?”
“I guess you could check the next time you get online. Ask me something different.”
“What’s my birthday?”
Billy was notoriously bad at remembering people’s birthdays. But... “April 21st, 1992.”
“What color is Binky’s collar right now?” Binky was Mary’s pet rabbit. He’d just gotten a new collar that morning.
“Green with purple spots. And his nametag is shaped like a heart. But they spelled his name “Blinky.””
“Okay, how are you doing this?” Mary demanded.
“It’s like I know everything now. But I have to write it. It’s not just in my head... it’s like it’s in my hand. I have to put it on paper to know it.”
“Wow.” Suddenly, a grin sprung to Mary’s face. “Hey, what are our parents talking about right now?”
“Um... Let’s see. My mom’s giving your dad a box of... ink things, for old-fashioned pens... and now your mom’s asking generic questions, and my mom’s complaining about work... She says she hasn’t been able to get into her patients’ heads lately, that she can’t tell where they’re coming from or figure out what they want to hear, and it’s been difficult, and one guy yelled at her. Wow, she didn’t tell me about any of this. She’s worried that the one guy is going to drop her, and if he does that she thinks he might not go see someone else and he’ll fall back into alcoholism. She... um... she didn’t say that last part out loud.”
Billy dropped his pen in horror as he realized what he’d just done. “Mary, you can’t tell anyone what I just told you. It violates doctor-patient confidentiality, and that’s the Worst Thing anyone can possibly do. I won’t read my mom’s mind anymore. It’s too dangerous.”
Mary just gave a subtle laugh. “Wimp.”
A couple of weeks later, Billy was given the Student of the Month prize for his improved grades. He kept forgetting to put a pencil in his backpack, so he got points marked off consistently, but his work was flawless. He actually worried that someone would think he was cheating, so after he got the award he started deliberately getting one or two things wrong on every test and assignment. Minor spelling errors, slip-ups in math problems... they were his camouflage. If the teachers figured out he had a special ability, they’d make him do something harder, and he just wanted to enjoy being smart for once.
He didn’t write anything about his mom, so he wasn’t prepared when she told him they might need to look at living more modestly. “I’ve lost a few patients recently. It’s nothing to worry about, but until I get some more, we’ll have to focus on saving money. I might not be able to get you new video games when you want them, and I’m looking at canceling our cable subscription. That’s not happening now, but it’s a distinct possibility for the future.”
Billy heard this, and realized that he might be able to solve the problem himself. He started writing. “The best way to make money is to start out with money. Investing a substantial sum into a business or speculative market can pay returns that are much more significant than those from minor investments.”
Ugh, thought Billy,
what does that even mean? He tried again. “The best way to make money when you start out with nothing is to find some service that you can provide to others. Street performers offer music or acrobatics for the enjoyment of strangers, who occasionally give payment in return. Day laborers perform menial tasks with no advance notice. These jobs do not typically pay a living wage, but there are thousands of people who subside on what they earn in these manners.”
That was no good. Billy couldn’t sing and there was no way his mom would let him be a “day laborer.” He kept writing all evening long, but there was nothing that seemed available to a child who just wanted to make lots of money so he and his mom could live like they always had.
The next day he had another math test. He couldn’t focus clearly enough to make deliberate mistakes, though he did get a point knocked off for using a pen. A part of him thought he should really get some more writing utensils. This pen was starting to bug him, with its smudges and the way lines were of different thicknesses depending on the direction of the pen stroke.
At every moment, Billy expected his world to fall apart. His mother would tell him that they couldn’t afford the cereal he liked, or they’d have to stop using real maple syrup. He wrote out a list of his favorite foods, and when he discovered the Kraft macaroni and cheese was one of the cheapest meal options, he calmed down a little. Most of the things he liked were probably not on the chopping block.
Over the next few days, as the first blow never came, Billy began to relax. His mother didn’t tell him that he’d have to sell his action figures, or cancel steak night. Billy kept getting headaches, but nothing else seemed wrong.
Then, on the bus home from school, he got it. The answer to their problems. He knew everything, as long as it was written down. He’d even correctly predicted the one day last week when the rain made them stay inside for lunch. He could tell the future, if he wanted to.
“Hi Mom!” He said as he ran through the house to his room. She waved to him with one hand, the other occupied with her phone.
“Thank you so much, Dan. I can’t tell you how much this means. My big brother’s still there to take care of me after all these years.”
Billy threw open the door to his room and tore his binder out of his backpack, grabbing a blank sheet of paper to write. “The winning lottery numb...”
The pen was running out of ink. Billy shook it and scribbled on the page, but one large blot was all that he could get out of it. He tossed the pen into his trash can and ran back out to the living room. His mom was still on the phone. “I don’t know, it’s like... I’ve lost my ability to empathise. I just can’t connect to people, and if I can’t feel what they’re going through, then I don’t know how to help them. I hope taking a sabbatical will be good for me. Maybe I’m just burned out. It happens. Sometimes dealing with all these tough emotional issues can be overwhelming, you know?”
“Hey mom, I need to borrow a pen, okay?”
“Okay, Billy. Just be careful in there.”
Billy was far too focused on his task to worry about looking at folders or actively trying not to look at them. He didn’t even notice that there were far fewer folders in the drawer than usual. He just grabbed a cheap ballpoint pen and ran back to his room, not even bothering to close the drawer.
“...numbers are...”
He drew a blank.
Come on, Billy, you have this! What are the winning lottery numbers? If he wrote them down they were sure to win, and he could have his mom buy him a ticket... she played occasionally, and sometimes she’d let Billy choose the numbers for her, so if he asked her to buy a ticket with the winning numbers, they’d be millionaires and he could get as many videogames and watch as much cable TV as he wanted. But first he had to write them down.
“Mr. Landen used to play the guitar, but he doesn’t anymore, because...” Billy couldn’t remember why Mr. Landen had given up on music, and it wasn’t coming into his head.
“Mary’s birthday is...” That had left him, too.
The gift was gone.
Billy had gone back to the way he was. And nothing would ever be the same.
Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 3:58 pm