He Is Not Alone

Thursday morning! What happened to me? I slept all through Wednesday. Butch and Sundance are still with me, watching over me like they were when we went to sleep Tuesday night. I have never slept like that.

The first order of business is food. The dogs ’dish is empty as is the water dish. So, they get water and food while I start some coffee. Next order of business is to get myself together. I think it is time to see a doctor. Maybe I am still suffering some side effects from the accident. After breakfast, I call the doctor and get an appointment for later that day. She is concerned about the episode on Tuesday night.

The morning is spent with Butch and Sundance. We go to the park and play. Both dogs seem to be handling everything just fine. Butch is very playful and has all kinds of energy. I’m sitting on the bench watching the dogs play when my mind starts to drift a little. I hear someone talking nearby but there is no one close to me. I hear one side of different conversations in my mind, but not through my ears. Butch comes over with a ball and wants to play, the voices fade away. We play for a little while and head back home. Its lunchtime and I need to head out to the doctor’s office. Butch and Sundance are lying down and barely pay any attention to my leaving.

Dr. Wood’s office is in Conshohocken. I have been seeing this doctor since she first started her practice. She is a pretty lady, brown hair, around 5’6”, married and pregnant with her second child, I know because she was pregnant with her first child a couple of years ago when I first met her. I prefer female doctors over their male counterparts. They seem to be more concerned with what you are saying and more helpful with suggestions. Anyway Dr. Wood comes into the exam room, her normal cheerful self. We chat for a few minutes and catch up on how I have been doing since the accident, how she is doing with the new baby on the way, then it is down to business. I tell her about the blue haze and how it reminds me of the accident. She asks some questions.

“Will, tell me what happened on Tuesday?”

“Well, I was out walking the dogs for their nightly trip and the haze started coming over me. I couldn’t see and felt kind of weak. I fell down; even the dogs knew something was wrong. Butch, the bigger one, became very protective and Sundance just wanted my attention. After a little while, it seemed to go away as we headed home.”

“Anything happen on the way back or when you were at home?”

“Well, I was really tired. The whole thing seemed to drain me of all my energy, so around 10 pm I went to bed. Strange, the dogs would not let me alone. They actually slept with me.”

“Was it a good night’s sleep? Did you have any nightmares or anything?”

“Nothing that I remember, but I did sleep all the way through until Thursday morning.”

“You slept straight through?”

“Yea didn’t wake up at all until around 7 am this morning.”

“Any problems after you woke up?”

“No, not really”

“Any headaches or dizziness?”

“Nope, only thing is I hear voices in my head.”

“What kind of voices?”

“Just one-sided conversations. I know this will sound strange but like it is with animals. Since the accident, I can hear what dogs, cats, birds, etc. are thinking. In some cases, I can actually make them do things without talking to them.”

“I don’t understand, what do you mean you hear them?”

“Well, after the accident, the two dogs I have now were following me. I could sense something about them and what they wanted. After that, I went to the pet store and tried an experiment and found out that I could understand many animals. I have even been helping the trainer with his classes because I seem to be able to get the pets to do things their owners can’t and help them learn quicker.”

“You said you can hear them as well?”

“Yes, I hear their thoughts. Well maybe not hear but sense what they are feeling.”

“When you are speaking to the pets in the class, you mean with speech, right?”

“No, I think it and they respond.”

“No speech?”

“Nope.”

“That is very interesting, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the accident. How has your eating been?”

“Fine”

“How about work?”

“When Sandy died, we had a lot of insurance, so basically, I gave up working.”

“What are you doing with yourself then?”

“Not much really. I play with the dogs; do the training on Tuesday night. Go for walks.”

“Don’t you think it is about time to get back into the game and start working again?”

“I really don’t have much desire to work.”

“Tell me about the conversations you are experiencing.”

“They don’t seem to be anything overly important, just one side of a conversation or thought.”

Dr. Wood stops for a moment and tells me she will be right back. As she leaves, I can sense her doubt. She thinks I need to see a specialist.

“Doctor, I am not crazy. I know you think I should see a specialist.”

Dr. Wood stops in her tracks and in her mind, says, “What am I thinking?”

I say, “What am I thinking?”

She comes back into the room and thinks of lunch, either pizza or a hoagie.

I tell her that the hoagies up on 11th Ave are the best in town, she drops the chart and sits down.

The doctor’s appointment was scary and exciting at the same time for me. I am now aware that I can ‘hear’ people’s thoughts. I want to know more, but I am afraid at the same time. What is happening to me? First the blue haze, then the animals and now people. I need to understand what is going on.

I feel bad for Dr. Wood. I left her with so many questions. But it was so shocking to realize that I actually did understand what she was thinking. I had to leave, it was too much to handle. Dogs and animals are one thing. People don’t know that I can hear and understand them unless I tell them. But with people, how can you not say something, just like with the doctor, I had to say what I heard.

That evening I take Butch and Sundance for their walk. While at the park, I sense something is not right. There are a lot of voices coming to me. As I approach the other end of the park, there are people standing around.

“What a terrible thing to happen here in our neighborhood,” an older lady says to no one in particular.

“She was so young,” another person says.

“Good riddance, she deserved it. If she would have stayed quiet none of this would have happened,” thinks a young man standing in the crowd.

WHAT! Did he do this? What can I do? I turn around and leave the park. My mind is full of questions and fears. I feel sorry for the young girl, but there is nothing I can do for her. I have to learn what is happening to me.

That night sleep did not come easily for me. My mind raced on to all different kinds of thoughts. How can I be hearing all of this? What can I do about it? Why is this happening? Maybe I should see a specialist. Maybe they can tell me what is going on and help me get over it.

The next morning over coffee I decide to see just what is happening to me. I think it is time to experiment. It seems to me that I can hear thoughts. So maybe I should walk around town and see what happens. See if I can determine who I am listening to. See if it is only certain people or can I hear everyone’s thoughts.

Butch and Sundance seem to know something is up. Sundance has been walking around all morning with his tail between his legs and his head down. This isn’t normal for him.

“Sundance, are you okay?” I ask.

“Come here, boy.” Sundance walks away still dejected. So, I follow him and get down on the floor with him. His mood is really down. I open my mind and think only of him for a minute. He is in pain. His rear quarter is hurting him. He is afraid.

I have been so busy with my own thoughts that I haven’t been paying attention to these two. “Butch, we are going to take Sundance to the doctors. Come on.” I say out loud.

Picking up Sundance we head to the Jeep. After about 40 minutes, the Vet comes out and tells me that Sundance is suffering from arthritis and old age. He gives me some medication to ease the pain but says it will only get worse. The doctor’s thoughts tell me a different story. Sundance is dying.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE IS DYING?” I shout!

“I didn’t say he was dying.” says the Vet.

“No, but you are thinking it!”

“I don’t understand,” the Vet is in shock.

I made a stupid mistake. I shouldn’t have reacted like that.

“Come on Butch, we need to take Sundance home” Butch follows me to the jeep and we head home. Once we get home, I make Sundance comfortable. Butch knows something is wrong. I have to tell him.

“Butch, I know this will be hard for you to understand, but Sundance is sick and will not be with us for very long.”

“He is going to die soon.” Butch tilts his head to one side and I can tell he doesn’t understand. So, I tell him that Sundance will be going to sleep for a very long time. We will have to put him in a special place so he will be comfortable. Butch and I lay down next to Sundance and we all slept through the night. The next morning Sundance was gone. He had passed during the night with his family close to him. I have always had pets, but this touched me more than any of them have. Perhaps it was because of the bond we shared, but Sundance will be remembered forever in my heart.

Sundance is buried in the backyard. Later I will find the proper headstone for him. Butch, is confused but seems to adjust as the day goes on. Time will tell.

Before all of this started, I was wondering what my capabilities were. Who can I hear, when can I hear them? For an experiment, I decided to take the train into Philadelphia. As I walk to the train station, Butch lays in the backyard, waiting for Sundance.

At the train station, it is after rush hour and only a half a dozen people are waiting. As I approach the platform, I begin to sense all kinds of emotions, Happy, sad, mad, illness. I try to identify which emotion goes with each individual. One of them is easy as the only other male on the platform is a young man dress like he is going to an interview or works in sales, in a light gray suit, blue shirt, and dark blue tie; he is carrying a leather portfolio case. He is the one that I sense is happy. As I look at him, his thoughts begin to take hold in my mind. He is excited to be going on his first interview. I approach him and introduce myself.

“Hello, I’m Will. You look like you are on cloud 9. Something good happened?”

“I’m Danny. I just finished trade school and am heading to my first job interview.”

“Hey, that’s great! What did you study?”

“Computers, I really want to be a Database Administrator. In school, I had some courses in database management. I learned a lot, but there is so much I don’t know.”

“You are not going to believe this, but I am a DBA, or was before my wife died. Look, I have some experience with interviewing new people, perhaps I can help you get prepared.”

“That would be great.”

Soon after the conversation begins, the train pulls into the station and we get on board. Danny and I spend some time going over some interview questions until someone else’s thoughts creep into my mind. Someone is concerned about their mother. I look around trying to pinpoint whose thoughts I am getting. As I look at a middle-aged woman, I can see in her eyes the beginning of tears.

Danny and I continue the “interview” and as the train pulls into 30th Street Station, I make sure to tell him to let me know how the interview went.

30th Street Station is an old train station built in the 1930s. The main hall has a coffered ceiling. Gold, red and crème are the color schemes. In the early days, the terminal included a hospital and mortuary. Amtrak was one of my early customers when I installed System Management Server for Amtrak. My office was at 30th Street Station. For that assignment, I was living in Conshohocken and took the train every day.

Now onto the next challenge, how do I select someone, if I even can? 30th Street station has a huge central hall where Amtrak trains come into the station and off one hallway the local or SEPTA trains. Coming down the local hallway, I can hear lots of voices. But I want to try to limit them to just one person. I have to clear my mind of all the noises I am hearing. There are hundreds of people talking at the same time. It begins to overwhelm me. So many people and they are all talking at the same time. I close my eyes and lean against the marble wall trying to clear my thoughts. Slowly, I begin to open my eyes and start to concentrate on a young black man standing across the hall. He seems to be interested in something or someone. He is looking for something, but I can’t tell what it is. He sees me looking at him and moves off. His thoughts are lost in the crowd.

The crowd begins to thin between train arrivals, I am able to concentrate on little more. Picking people walking by and I find that I can catch bits and pieces as they continue on their way. After a while, I decide to walk into the main area and settle down to work on this new skill or whatever you want to call it. The busiest place in the station is near the coffee stand. There are always people waiting for or drinking their coffee. The first person I begin to practice on is an Amtrak security officer on break. Kind of funny, even on break he is watching and studying the people around him. Next, I chose a janitor. He is singing to himself as he walks around checking the trash cans. The more I practice, the easier it is to block out those around me. After about an hour, it seems that all I have to do is look at someone and I can hear what they are thinking.

Trouble! I am scanning the crowds and come upon a young woman whose thoughts grab my attention. She appears to be in her early to mid-’20s, a California girl, blond hair, blue eyes, slim build. She has what I guess is called a summer dress with a flower pattern and she is wearing white sneakers. She has something in her bag and is waiting for a signal to set it off. She seems nervous and is watching the time. Her thoughts tell me that it isn’t time yet. I have to do something, but what? I can’t go to the police and say, hey this lady has a bomb, and they will think I am crazy. Maybe if I talk to her I can distract her from whatever is supposed to happen.

“Hi, I’m Will. I noticed that you seem to be upset. Maybe I can help? What’s the matter?”

“Listen, Will, there is nothing wrong. Please leave me alone!”

“For someone who says nothing is wrong, you sure do sound upset. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, I don’t want to talk about it. LEAVE ME ALONE!”

I can sense that it is getting close to the time. She keeps looking at the clock in the center of the station.

“At least tell me your name?”

“I’m not going to tell you anything, just go away!”

With that one of the security guards comes over.

“Is there a problem here?” he asks

She quickly recovers and says, “No not really. I just wanted to be alone and he was asking if he could help.”

“Who are you sir?” asks the security guard.

“My name is Will Smythe,” I reply.

“Well, Mr. Smythe, I think the lady wants to be alone. Why don’t we give her some space, OK,” replies the guard?

While the guard and I are talking, I manage to move her bag away from where she is sitting.

“OK, fine,” I say as I reach down and pick up the bag, walking behind her so she doesn’t notice.

Now what? People leave stuff all the time while waiting for the trains, so I decide to take the bag to security.

“I found this bag, someone must have left it.”

“Where did you find it?”

“Over by the coffee shop.”

“Okay, thank you for turning it in.”

I turn around and leave. A couple of minutes later the place is being evacuated. It seems that the guard looked into the bag and found the explosives. We are all told to leave the building and to go across the street. As I begin to leave, a hand grabs my shoulder.

“Excuse me, sir, but will you please come with us?” There are two plainclothes police showing me their badges.

“Of course, officer, is there a problem?” I reply.

“We will let you know in a minute, please, come this way.”

I am led towards a small security office in a closed-down section of the station, where I sit for what seems like hours. There isn’t much to this office. It is maybe eight by ten, an old metal desk and two chairs. The fluorescent lighting casts that standard bluish lighting. There is one clock on the wall and it says I should be getting lunch soon.

About twenty minutes after one, two men come into the office, show their badges to the guard and come over to talk to me. They show me their badges and explain that they are undercover detectives and have some questions for me.

The older detective appears to be about forty-five or so, overweight with a beer drinker’s stomach and thinning black hair. His blue suit is a little small and outdated. His partner is younger, maybe early thirty’s. He is in better shape and his clothing is more up to date.

“Am I under arrest?” I ask.

“No, sir, but we do have some questions for you,” says the older detective.

“OK, what do you want to know?”

“We have had the young woman under surveillance for some time now. Do you know who she is?”

“No, sir. I saw her sitting there and she seemed upset. She’s a pretty woman so I thought I would see if I could help her.”

“Yes, we saw you approach her. What did you two talk about?”

“I asked her if she needed help or wanted to talk. She was pretty upset. I could tell something was bothering her.”

“Why did you take her bag when you left?”

Now I know that I was caught. I can’t tell them I read minds, they will lock me up. What can I do?

“Do I need to get a lawyer?” I ask.

“Look your actions probably saved the lives of many people. We just want to know why you did what you did. Are you related or involved with her in any way?”

“No, I never saw her before today. When I saw her, she seemed to be waiting for something. She checked the contents of the bag several times and was very nervous. I went over to see what was up.”

“Well, your actions prevented her from detonating a bomb that would have killed a lot of people. Your intuition was right on.”

I can tell these two are not convinced.

“Detective, I can see in your face that you are not convinced. There is something that I would like to tell you, but if I do, you will probably think I am a crackpot or something.”

The detectives look at each other and the younger one says “Why don’t you try us? What really happened out there?”

So, I lay it all out for them. Beginning with the experiment to see whose minds I could read. Of course, they didn’t believe me.

“Look, I know you don’t believe me. Both of you think of anything you want. “

The older detective says, “OK, what am I thinking of?”

I smile and say “9”.

He looks at me and says, “I don’t believe it. How did you know?”

The younger detective looks at me and says, “Who is my girlfriend?”

I reply “You don’t have one; Julie broke up with you 3 weeks ago. She told you she has someone new.”

Both detectives sit down and just stare at me.

After a few minutes, both detectives have a lot more questions. We talk for a couple of hours about what I was doing in Philadelphia, what I heard from her, where I worked, about my family and many other subjects. In the end, both detectives thanked me for what I had done. Took my contact information and let me go.

It is almost 5 o’clock and I am finally on the way home. I had some time to think about the day. It was a good day. I managed to save the lives of a lot of people. Maybe there is a purpose for this new capability. I can do some good helping people.