A very warm hello… and I hope you’re keeping nice and cosy whether it’s getting snowy where you are or not.
It’s been a bit of a stressful week here but I’ve cracked the cover for The Empath and, once I’m happy, I’ll be uploading and letting you know but I do have some assignments, travel and work to get through this week before I can do so. Still, stress aside, we’re putting up the decorations to the sound of gentle music (well, Em is putting them up and I’m heckling while writing this!)
I wanted to also read a little story to you this week which I did release in an anthology years ago which has several chapters so I will post them tomorrow or perhaps this week so that you can enjoy chuckling along (or at) me!
I do hope you enjoy and have a wonderful week!
Big Smiles,
JK x
Copyright © 2004, 2022 Jody Klaire
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher/author.
Chapter 6
I fell asleep in my cell after being rescued and had one of those odd siestas that left me feeling groggy and confused. I lay there between full sleep and awareness and tried to lift my consciousness because, in that state as an empath, I was in danger of having visions and if there was one thing I hated more than anything, it was having visions.
A normal person would fall asleep and process the day before or occasionally they’d have a weird dream about their family members becoming monkeys and dancing the samba… but all in all, safe, sweet dreams.
For me, odd dreams were my vision-time and I’d have horrific glimpses instead of nice ones because visions didn’t work on a logical level, for instance, if someone was going to find the love of their lives, I would dream about smashing heat and infernos—their passion equaled my nightmare and it was never pleasant.
So, as I tried to free myself from getting a vision, I slipped instead into a dream but this was about the past instead.
Sam and I were best friends and had been joined at the hip since I was in junior high. Sam had been the kind of boy that every girl loved with chestnut brown hair, puppy-dog brown eyes and a hint of rebellion. I hadn’t ever loved him like that and I guessed it came with being an empath ‘cause I was never sure if what I felt was genuine or just a projection of somebody else’s feelings. I didn’t have a whole lot of people who felt any kind of affection for me but still, I’d never felt like I had that kind of feeling toward nobody and, well, it was better if I didn’t go hurting folks by trying to figure myself out. Still, Sam and I were as close as you could get and Jake, his little brother and my junior by two years, followed us everywhere.
I doted on Jake and Sam put up with me fussing over him so, wherever one was, the other two of us would be close and my mom called us a trio of terrors.
She was kinda right because, if we weren’t breaking into the old soda factory to steal glass bottles for Sam to shoot at, then we were raking the floor under the machines in the arcade to get enough cash so Sam could buy beer and that weren’t the only way we got money seeming as we lived in a little town in the middle of the Ozarks which was a prime tourist haunt. There were some more light-fingered hobbies that I don’t like thinking on but then I wound up in here for manslaughter so I guess it ain’t worth sweating on the small stuff.
This memory, however, had haunted me since I’d been sent inside and it was when Sam and I were on the old rail crossing on the far reaches of town. Sam had come up with the brilliant idea to strip all the copper from the signal posts to sell it for scrap and we’d done it before ‘cause scrap was worth a whole lot of dollars.
What made the difference this particular night was that Jake had snuck out and followed us. Sam weren’t best pleased ‘cause he said that Jake could never keep his mouth shut ‘bout anything yet I kinda liked that trait in him ‘cause he was honest, sweet and adored me but he detested Sam and called him an ogre—brotherly love for you.
Anyhow, Sam and me had stripped the signal post and loaded up the truck Sam had ‘borrowed’ from the local campsite. I had hopped into the passenger side only for Sam and Jake to start bickering but then, at this point, my memory gets real foggy and out of place until I see myself in front of Jake and he’s yelling at me and telling me that it’s illegal what I’m doing and folks will get hurt. He goes on and on ‘bout the fact that someone will catch me and then I’ll get sent away but then the train rumbles through the ground and I’m not in the car anymore, I’m on the side of the tracks and Jake is tugging at my arm. A high speed train hurtles around the bend. Jake is wobbling on his feet. He grabs for me and I throw my hand out… then he’s gone and the blast of air from the train throws me backward.
I sat bolt upright clutching at the air, desperate to pull him toward me but he was always too far away. He was gone and it was my fault.
‘Aeron, Doctor Llys would like to see you in her office,’ the friendly guard said through the flap.
My heart pounded in my chest and I rubbed at my soaked neck.
‘Do you need a few minutes?’ she asked.
I shook my head, pulled myself up, splashed water on my face to try and wash away a past I couldn’t change, set my jaw to hide the fact that it was my fault then strode out of the door to see Doctor Llys. Round two.
