Dave Zeltserman: Bad Karma

Shannon thanked him for his help, and watched as the professor moved quickly down the stone path, almost as if he were in a jog.

The English department office was empty when Shannon got there. After a ten minute wait, a middle-aged woman entered and took a seat at the administrator’s desk. She smiled sadly at Shannon when he asked about Taylor Carver.

“That was just terrible,” she said. “I never had a chance to get to know him, only saw him around the office occasionally, but it is simply terrible when something like that happens.”

“I’m trying to find any faculty or other students who might’ve been more familiar with him.”

“Let me see if I can help.” She went over to a file cabinet, searched through one of the drawers and brought a folder back with her. “His advisor was Professor White.” She smiled apologetically at Shannon. “Unfortunately, Professor White is traveling abroad this summer.”

“Any way to contact him?”

“I don’t believe so, he’s hiking in the Andes. But I can give you his email address. Maybe he’s able to check it. Who knows these days with wireless laptops?”

“I couldn’t answer that. I’ve still got an old clunky desktop system at home. Anyone else who might’ve known Taylor?”

She gave him another pained apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, I really don’t know. The problem with summer session is we have a very limited faculty on hand. But let me give you a list of faculty members who are here this summer.”

She pulled a sheet from a stack of papers on her desk, made a copy, and after writing down Professor White’s email address, handed the paper to Shannon. Before leaving, Shannon tacked one of his photos of Taylor Carver up on the office bulletin board, and wrote a note on it for anyone who knew Taylor to give him a call. The administrator wished him luck, and Shannon thanked her for her help.

He had pretty much the same results at the Film Studies department office. It was a quarter past twelve by the time he finished up. He stood for a moment and tried to collect his thoughts. A nearby maple tree caught his attention and he found a shady spot under it, sat cross-legged with his hands resting lightly on his knees and closed his eyes as he tried to imagine a third eye of pure white light emerging from the middle of his forehead. For a while he was able to maintain his focus, but then noises and other thoughts started to buzz through his head and knocked him out of his meditation. He felt calmer, but no more insightful of how he was going to proceed. He checked his watch, saw it was a few minutes to one and called Susan. They arranged to meet at their favorite Nepalese restaurant.

Susan’s face was flushed as she told Shannon about her day so far. Back in Massachusetts, she had worked as a secretary in a Boston law firm, a job that was mostly miserable for her. Since moving to Colorado, Susan studied homeopathy for three years and now had a small but growing practice. At five foot two and barely a hundred pounds soaking wet, she was exceptionally beautiful with mesmerizing soft gray eyes and long black hair that flowed past her thin shoulders. Shannon knew she loved working as a homeopath and it brought an ache to his chest to see her face lit up the way it was.

“My nine o’clock was a pure Medhorrinum,” Susan continued between bites of Aloo Mutter, an Indian dish made up mostly of potatoes, peas and spices. “I recognized his remedy type pretty quickly. Medhorrinum fit him so perfectly. It explained his sinus infections and his…” She stopped to give Shannon a cross-eyed look. “What are you grinning at?” she demanded.

“Nothing,” Shannon said, grinning widely. “I just love watching you after you meet with clients, that’s all.”

“You think this is all silly, don’t you?”

“You’re asking me that? Someone who’s been studying for five years how to have lucid dreams? Who’s been trying to learn how to leave his body?” Shannon stopped to take a bite of his Vegetable Korma. At one point he had been a steak and potatoes guy, but after all the gore Charlie Winters had visited on him the thought of eating meat repulsed him so much that he became a strict vegetarian. He had read that slaughterhouse workers often become vegetarians for the same reason. Susan also switched to being mostly vegetarian, except for occasionally eating fish.

“I think it’s great that you’re so passionate about what you’re doing,” Shannon added.

She gave him a wary eye. “Why do I think you’re not taking me seriously, and that you’re only sitting there grinning like an idiot because you think I’m cute?”

Shannon’s grin grew wider. “Well, you are damn cute, but of course I take you seriously. Even though I only understand a third of what you’re saying when you talk about homeopathy.”

Susan laughed at that. She broke off a piece of naan and took a healthy bite of it. As she looked at Shannon, her flush deepened to a darker shade of red. “Hon, my eleven o’clock appointment was amazing. I think I could write a paper about him for one of the homeopathic journals. He works as a psychic with police departments around the country. If he’s given an article of clothing from a dead person, he can locate the body. Sometimes he can locate them while they’re still alive. Just last year he saved a girl who had fallen into a hole. The way he described it to me, there are two worlds-the one we’re used to and the other one. He lives in both of them. When that girl started to enter into the other world, he was able to see her. “

“I remember reading about that. Wasn’t that in Oklahoma…?” Shannon broke off his question, perceiving the alarm in Susan’s eyes. She could discuss her cases in detail, but ethically she was not allowed to mention the identities of her patients, and if Shannon was able to guess who this man was, she would’ve betrayed her practitioner-patient confidentiality which was something Shannon knew she took seriously. He casually waved the whole thing away. “I think I’m confusing that with a book I read,” Shannon said. “But that’s quite a gift he has.”

Gratitude shone in Susan’s eyes for Shannon not pushing it and remembering the psychic’s name. “He pays a price for it,” she said, still heated with excitement but choosing her words more carefully. “When I shook hands with him, it was like shaking hands with a corpse. But, Bill, I might’ve saved his life.” She edged closer, her voice dropping to a hushed whisper. “He came to see me because his physician gave him only a few weeks to live. Almost every system in his body is badly diseased. But I am positive his remedy type is Stramonium, and I think there’s a chance I can reverse his diseased systems.”

“I hope it works.”

“I hope so too. I gave him a dose of Stramonium, and he’s going to call me after his next doctor’s appointment.”

There was a hot intensity burning in her eyes and on her skin. She was so jazzed from her work that it brought a lump to Shannon’s throat. He reached across the table with his damaged hand so he could feel the warmth of her cheek against his palm.

“You’re so damn beautiful,” he said, his tone the same hushed whisper that she had used. As she took hold of his hand and felt the stumps where his fingers should’ve been, her smile weakened and became something fragile.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Here I am only talking about me, and I don’t even ask you what’s going on with you.”

“It didn’t sound to me like you were talking about yourself. It sounded more like how you’re helping other people. I’m so damn proud of you, babe.”

She kissed his damaged hand. “Are you doing okay today without your glove?”