M Sellars - Perfect Trust

“How are you doing, Mister Gant?”

I opened my eyes and found her standing at the end of the bed. She appeared just as tired as she had a few hours ago.

“As well as can be expected I suppose.”

“Good,” she answered succinctly as she jotted something on a clipboard, then without looking up she added, “Interesting talent you have there. Is it legible or are you just doodling?”

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“The writing without looking.” She gestured to the adjustable table that was positioned over the bed in front of me. “You were even doing it with your eyes closed when I walked in.”

I tilted my head forward to gaze in the direction she indicated and watched in astonishment as my left hand, gripping a pencil, moved swiftly back and forth across a small notepad. Several pages had already been filled and flipped upward.

The fact that I was right-handed isn’t even what bothered me most. Or even the fact that I was writing both forwards and backwards. No…it was the realization that I’d had no idea what my left hand was doing until it had been pointed out to me that really got under my skin.

As I watched, my hand automatically flipped the newly filled page up and set the tip of the pencil against an empty sheet. I stared on as it continued of its own accord to scribe in smooth, clear, and wholly unfamiliar handwriting, repeating over and over the same line of text as it had on all the previous pages.

Dead I am. Dead I am. I do not like that dead I am.

“So what’re ya’ doin’ now?” Ben asked as he stared at the pad of paper. “Tryin’ ta’ be some kinda morbid Doctor Seuss?”

I’d expected that. I didn’t necessarily like it, but it was bound to come out of someone sooner or later. And the more I thought about it, the more I suspected it would end up being not just sooner or later, but both. Even I had no choice but to admit that the similarity between what I’d written and one of the most memorable lines from a beloved children’s book was uncanny. I was certain to be hearing about it from anyone who became privy to the product of my unconscious scribbling. Under wholly different circumstances the parallel might even have been amusing.

But it was under these circumstances, not different ones, and the word “dead” played a prominent role in the repetitious line of text. Couple that with the fact that the pad full of paraphrased prose came out of me involuntarily, and I didn’t find it amusing in the least.

“I’m being serious here, Ben,” I returned, my voice dull.

“Okay, okay.” He tossed the notepad onto his desk blotter and leaned back in his chair. Propping one ankle across his knee then clasping his hands behind his head, he gave me a serious look. “I’m listenin’. What’s the deal with this notepad?”

I had called my friend as soon as I’d been released from the hospital. The doctor still had no definitive results back from the tests that had been run, but I was feeling fine, so she’d relented and allowed me to leave. I knew full well that I hadn’t had a stroke, but I wasn’t about to try explaining what had caused my very pronounced symptoms. If I had, I’d probably still be talking to the staff psychiatrist as well as being taken on a tour of their lovely padded accommodations. I’d been down this road before, and I was in no hurry to visit it again.

You tend to get a small spectrum of reactions when you look at someone and say, “I’m a Witch.” The three biggies go something like this: One, they look at you like you are crazy. Two, they try to introduce you to Jesus and save you from yourself; or, three, they run screaming in the opposite direction. In my case, being male, I also get the added, ‘”Don’t you mean warlock?” This usually prompts me to give the actual definition of the word warlock, that being “oath breaker.” The resulting short explanation of the fact that male or female, a Witch is very simply called a Witch, is usually a good one for glazing over the eyes of the uninitiated in less than sixty seconds.

Though I don’t make a secret of my religious path or even my mystical leanings, I’ve learned to avoid the subject in given situations. Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to be honest-plain and simple.

When I’d made my call, I had found Ben behind his desk at City Homicide working on the situation that had gotten him out of bed only a handful of hours before. I’d suspected as much would be the case and hadn’t even tried calling him at home. When I told him what I wanted to show him, he’d suggested that I go to my own home and get some rest. I doubt he’d really expected me to follow the suggestion because he didn’t seem at all surprised to see me coming through the glass-fronted double doors of his department just over thirty minutes later.

Felicity on the other hand, had been a tougher sell. Though her outward appearance may be that of fragile beauty, my wife was as headstrong as they came. I was fully aware that what came across on the surface as stereotypical Irish stubbornness and temper was truly born of intellect, will, and protective instinct. Still in all, igniting that temper was something better left undone unless you had a damned good reason. I just didn’t feel I had a choice this time around, even if my reason was no more than repeating pages of nonsensical rhyme on a notepad and a gut-twisting bad feeling about them.

In the end, it took me all of fifteen minutes to convince her that if she didn’t take me by City Police Headquarters on the way home, I would simply find a way to take myself. She had finally given in, and at this particular moment she was parked next to me in one of the stackable, molded-plastic chairs the detectives used for visitors. It was no secret that she wasn’t happy with me in the least, but I was betting she would get over it. She always did.

I shifted in my own seat, it also being a refugee from the stack of seventies era furniture, and succeeded only in moving the discomfort from one side of my body to the other.

“Did you happen to notice anything other than the similarity to a children’s book about green eggs?” I asked.

“You got nice handwriting.” Ben shrugged. “Kinda pretty. I especially like that little curly-q thing you do with the bottoms of the I’s.”

“Exactly,” I affirmed, ignoring his sardonic addition. “It is nice handwriting. But it’s not my handwriting.”

“Whaddaya mean? I thought ya’ said you wrote it.”

“I did, but not of my own volition.”

“You wanna explain that?”

I sighed. I’d been through this with him already when I’d called, but obviously either I hadn’t made myself clear or he’d been ignoring me. I suspected it was the latter, but considering the altered states I’d been in recently, I couldn’t say for sure.

“It’s called automatic writing, Ben,” I explained. “It’s a psychic event that occurs when a spirit or entity channels through someone on this plane of existence. The person doing the channeling simply acts as the conduit for the spirit who then communicates by writing.”

“Okay…” my friend said as he tilted his chair back forward and picked up the notepad once again. “So what you’re sayin’ is that this is one of those Twilight Zone things?”

“It has to be.” I nodded. “I was completely unaware of the fact that I was writing any of that until it was pointed out to me. Also, I was writing with my left hand. I’m right-handed.”

He picked up a large mug and took a swig then set it back on the stained blotter. “So if I’m connectin’ all the dots here, you think maybe Paige Lawson is tryin’ to communicate with ya’.”

“That’s my guess.”

“Okay.”