Extrasensory

"What did you say?"

"I didn't."

"No, no, I heard you say something about the red box in the shed, the keys are in there??"

"How did you..."

"Never mind, I'll see you later Charlotte."

I walked out of Charlotte's house dazed and confused, sunburnt, and shoes still full of sand, mission in mind. But it had happened again. Conscious telepathy? Mind reading? Either I was losing my mind, or we all were.

It's hard to see the trees when you're so deep in the woods. Even harder when the heat waves of summer 2027 are melting the asphalt and upending the anchors of the train tracks, not to mention, our shared reality.

People were heading inland and north due to the looming hurricane season, and I needed those old car keys if we were going to float.

Charlotte had her roots super glued into the inherited beach house, refusing to migrate with us for even just the weekend, and as much as I cared for her and her safety there was no swaying of her iron-locked free will.

"She's as stubborn as this lock, huh?" Blake said, as I took a swing at it again, breaking the rusted obstacle into pieces.

"More than that..." I thought to myself, one of the last thoughts I would have -to myself-.

The red box at the back of the shed glimmered of hope under the blazing sunbeam pouring in through the cracks of the shed ceiling. I pulled out the car keys and snatched my old heart locket too as we stumbled through the chaos and clutter under our feet.

"Scientists are claiming that the earth's poles have officially flipped, causing the disappearance of the Earth's magnetic field, at least temporarily. This would cause Earth to be unprotected from future solar flares, weather disasters, wandering particles into the atmosphere, and..."

"Turn that sci-fi junk off, Lucy!"

I tuned the car radio back to 102 Jamz for Blake, and honestly myself. Not because I didn't have an understanding of exactly what this news meant for our environment in the coming months and years, but because I was utterly mentally and physically exhausted, nearly energetically extinguished, also in need of a musical oasis in this heat.

It was an extensive journey, yet Saturday came quick, and so did the Canadian border. Running out of our own resources as well as serotonin, we stopped at Niagara Falls to cool off for the day.

"Never seen a summer like this, have we?" The quirky, just a little too well-dressed man said, sitting at the next bench down from us. He was a peculiar man within a peculiar day, and I wandered briefly how our paths had crossed, as if details like this really meant anything to my life in the grand scheme of things at all, let alone this single day. I forced a shy grin and nod, not exactly trying to start this conversation with a stranger, until there it was again, subtle, yet resounding in sound, his thought:

"This planet is not going to make it unless they come soon."

"I'm sorry, but unless who comes soon? What are you talking about?" I exclaimed, unnerved at the nonchalant demeanor of this professor (his briefcase giving his identity away as he stood abruptly).

"Excuse me ma'am I have to get going."

"Wait!" I pleaded through a sea of dreary mist. "You must know! I know you know I heard that!"

He scurried away unsuccessfully, papers flying out of his busted briefcase.

"Ma'am I cannot stay and talk, I apologize".

But he didn’t have to. His inner voice was already heard.

There were things that the majority of the population did not know. Maybe kept secret in an attempt to curve the mass hysteria that would follow the discovery of telepathy, another result of the disintegration of the magnetic field and solar flares. The distrust, the confusion, the people that would ultimately manipulate the situation for their own gains, against another's free will.

The world was being enveloped by fear that weekend as we crossed the border. Time was moving differently. I was perceiving differently. Blake was sleeping a lot more and driving less, and I couldn't blame him.

The clock was ticking in one sense, but not linearly as before, as I began to lose track of why we headed north to begin with. The heat was inevitable, the suffering too, and the voices of others were beginning to drift in and out of my audibility more, as if I were a well-oiled radio tuning into the inner worlds of each passerby vaguely and without intention.

“I don’t know why we are here” I thought, as we sat at the picnic table of the rest stop on the rocky east coast.

“What do you mean, Lucy?”

He had heard that. I turned to Blake, a bit disoriented and overwhelmed, yet full of compassion in that moment. With a deep breath I pulled out my old locket and began the dreaded conversation I needed to have with him.

“Blake I want you to have this locket, and I want you to always remember what I am going to say. Our planet has changed. Our hearts have changed too, and they are a lot like this heart-shaped locket. Easily opened so that anyone can see what's on the inside; this is new. People may be able to see our truest feelings and desires, what we hold most dear, and what we are afraid to lose, all with a quick snap. But we have to keep our hearts like the locket in other ways too, solidified metal. Solid enough to withstand the storm, and bright and reflective so that the light from our hearts light up someone else’s just by being near.”

“Alright, thank you Lucy” Blake wearily chuckled, and this time he felt my words with a heavier weight too. He was starting to understand.

“I have to go back to Charlotte. She’s having a hard time, and it’s only going to get harder.”

“I know you do.” said Blake.

“Hold on folks, we are approaching a bit of turbulence, should only last a few minutes!” the pilot exclaimed.

I hate planes. But I love Charlotte, and by the sound of our last phone call, she was not coping with the changes in perception very well at all. Her neighbors were becoming annoyed at her strange behaviors, her paranoia had worsened, but the bulk of this iceberg was still the category five hurricane headed toward her area within the next two days.

Anxiety was washing over me in waves. I had become a bit of an insomniac, sleeping strange hours now. So as much as I was nervously observing the condition of our flight, I began to drift to sleep, slowly, calmly, as a much-needed quiet moment started to fall over the passengers and crew of the flight.

Eyes half-closed, drifting into a meditation while staring out the window of the plane that very stressful night, the resounding vibrations came once more:

“We are with you. Do not fear.”

I was startled to say at the least, as the plane had been quite silent for a few minutes now, and this was not the pilot’s radio speaking, this was something else; something from that knowing space, the new sense. A few rows ahead of me, someone was looking around, wondering the same thing I was.

“Was that you?” the agitated passenger said to me.

“No…I’m not sure…”

I turned instinctually to glance out the window: a dark geometric disc, a flash of light, disorientation, and then recalibration, all in one swift motion.

I looked back into the dimly lit interior of the plane. Everyone calm, weather included. I might have been the sole perceiver of that unbelievable moment, again. But this time, I felt my own words surrounding me like the warm beach wind; I must keep my heart strong like the metal locket, strong enough to withstand the confusion.

I had experienced it, and now I had to find the compassion for myself to know, I should not fear.

I now knew the “they” the professor had referred to in his thoughts that day at the Falls.

The question that was now circulating our world was not if they exist, but if they have been here all along. If our perception had changed, it was meant to change. And if I had experienced seeing the unidentified object out of the plane window, I must have seen it for a reason.

The rain had begun to swirl as soon as the plane landed, and as I approached the beach house to find Charlotte, I realized how fragile and relative sanity truly was.

So, I left my fear and embraced my purpose. The pain of the change was inevitable, but the suffering would be optional. We didn’t have to be lost forever.

“We’re going to get through this storm, Charlotte.”

In that moment, a perplexed and intrigued Charlotte had heard two voices speak at once, but their vibrations were the same.

“Okay, Lucy. I believe you.” She whispered, soothed and more peaceful than she had been in weeks, as she dozed into an extraterrestrial dream.