Soulmates

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Design by Nathan Everett

Cover photo by Emotions Studio, ID530330200 licensed from Shutterstock.com.

First eBook Edition

ISBN 978-1-955874-98-4

DISCLAIMER: This book contains content of an adult nature. This includes explicit sexual content and characters who may not conform to your religious, political, or world view. The content is inappropriate and in some cases illegal for readers under the age of 18.

1
From Birth

Jaime

Everyone hated Jaime. He tried and tried to get people to listen to him, but they just ignored him. He could hear them clearly, even when they were cluttering up what they were saying with noises from their mouths. But no one would answer him when he spoke.

The reason might have been because Jaime never opened his mouth. No one had ever heard him speak. He heard people better in his head than in his ears, but no one responded in his head. They just ignored him.

Understandably, Jaime thought everyone hated him.

Not everyone, perhaps. Jaime knew his parents loved him and worried about him all the time. The words that came out of their mouths were accompanied with warm feelings of love and acceptance. But in their heads, Jaime heard words like ‘slow to develop’ and ‘autistic.’ Of course, those words never came out of their mouths when they were around Jaime. The words were always accompanied by feelings of fear and anxiety. Words Jaime hadn’t learned the meaning of, but knew the feelings.

Jaime didn’t understand most of what people said in their heads. That was a problem from the moment he was born.

Apparently, being inside his mom shielded him from most thoughts, but once he was outside her protective womb and people were all around, he was bombarded with thoughts from everywhere. They were all strange and other. He couldn’t understand the thoughts. Everyone was shouting all at once in a language he didn’t understand.

It was frightening. Jaime started trying to close out the thoughts—to shut his mental ears—but didn’t know what to do. His body began to respond without his own volition. It started shutting down. He was overwhelmed by the sensations and thoughts he couldn’t understand. The noise in his head was too much for him. Jaime had so much input into his infant mind that he forgot important things—like breathing.

He was abruptly torn from his mother’s arms. People thinking urgent things put tubes in his nose and kept his heart beating. He was put in a plastic box that cut out much of the cacophony of thoughts.

He slept.

“I’d have to say the birth trauma did some permanent damage,” the doctor told Jaime’s mother and father. “I don’t know how much and at this stage, it’s hard to run any qualitative tests.”

“What should we do?” Nola asked. That was Mama to Jaime, but she never responded to him when he said the word in his head.

“The rest of his development seems normal. Growth. Motor skills. Weight gain. All well within the standards. I’d say continue to love him and don’t try to force speech development on him. Talk to him. Play with him. Just make sure he is confident in your love for him.”

“We can do that,” David said. That was Dada to Jaime.

Jaime heard the words in his head, but at three years old, he didn’t have a large enough vocabulary to understand what they meant. That was part of what was normal with him. His language development was par for his age group. He learned far more from listening in people’s heads than by listening with his ears. Some people didn’t use words in their heads and Jaime struggled to learn the words they said with their mouths. It was very complicated.

People who used fewer words and more pictures in their heads were easier to understand. It was people who only used feelings and intentions in their heads who were difficult to understand. Jaime didn’t understand all the pictures he saw in other people’s heads, either, but he learned from them, nonetheless. There were some things people thought and then immediately tried not to think. Some of those pictures seemed exciting to the thinker, but they were just pictures Jaime silently filed away in the back of his mind to understand later.

He could usually tell when a person was excited or happy or sad or angry or worried. He could understand emotions more easily than some words. He could tell what people felt when he felt them. But he seldom understood why they felt what they did. There didn’t seem to be words to match the feelings.

As Jaime’s fourth birthday approached and he had still never spoken a word, his parents grew even more concerned that something serious was wrong.

2
Mommy

Jaime and Mommy (Nola)

In fact, Jaime’s mother did offer some shielding from the onslaught of mental voices pounding at his head. Her soft and loving caresses soothed him and helped block out the cacophony. She was calm and all her thoughts were about him. He instinctively reached out with his mind to share his love for her, but she didn’t seem to be aware that he was talking to her. He simply clung to her more closely than ever.

He was uncommonly quiet, even in instances where he was hurt and crying, he made no noise. Nola had to be ever more attentive to him, mindful of danger and injury, since he never cried out. She and David were increasingly concerned, and Nola’s full-time job became caring for Jaime.

She played with him and read to him, pointing out words as she spoke them. In this way, Jaime learned rapidly, but even when he laughed, the sound was little more than a squeak. Nola and David became more and more convinced that the birth trauma had somehow damaged the connection from his brain to his voice box. They gave him constant words of encouragement, asking him to select the blue block or the red crayon—tasks Jaime always completed with ease. They praised his accomplishments. Sometimes, Jaime thought they were talking to him in his head, but when he responded there was nothing. They never responded directly when he tried to ask a question.

Jaime withdrew even further into himself. When he was taken to a play group with other children his age, none of them would respond to his thoughts, either. He sat off to the side and watched children laughing and talking, unable to comprehend why they didn’t like him. He had so many questions and all he could do was listen and wait, hoping the answer would come. He pointed to things and his parents responded, but they often ran down a litany of what his gesture might mean before they arrived at the right conclusion.

He became more and more frustrated. People just didn’t listen, no matter how he shouted at them in his mind. He found himself sitting alone with a book or a toy, obsessed with some intricate detail. He was pleased when his mother began teaching him the alphabet and showing him how the letters went together to form words.

Jaime gradually became aware of another phenomenon. People often didn’t say the same thing with their inside voice as their out-loud voice. As time went by, even his mother talked aloud to him in comforting and caring tones, while her inside voice was filled with anxiety. Words like ‘slow developing,’ and ‘autism’ were in her inside vocabulary—words Jaime didn’t know the meaning of but knew they were bad things about him. That was why no one would talk to him in his head, he thought. He was bad. He was an autism. No one liked an autism.

When guests came to their house or when they visited elsewhere, Jaime hid and found places where people’s inside voices didn’t reach him as relentlessly.

Jaime was five years old and had resigned himself to never being listened to and being a bad person no one liked. He was playing on the floor with a toy xylophone he’d learned a tune on. His parents were very proud that he didn’t just hammer on the keys. His mother was finishing the dishes from their quiet lunch together.

He hardly ever tried to reach his mother with his thoughts any longer because she never answered him. He simply couldn’t understand why people bothered with their out-loud voices when they were perfectly clear with their inside voices. They never said what they meant.

The peanut butter sandwich he’d had for lunch left bits of gummy bread stuck in his mouth. He wanted another glass of milk.

«Milk, Mommy,» he thought as clearly as he could.

His mother continued washing the dishes. Jaime was getting more and more flustered as time went by. He thought perhaps if he was more polite, his mother would pay attention. He organized his thoughts and directed them to his mother again.

«May I have milk please, Mommy?» he thought as clearly as he could.

Still no response. Maybe it was all a game people played that he didn’t understand. He organized his words again and did his best to speak with a squeaky little out-loud voice.

“Mother, may I please have a glass of milk?” he said, mimicking people he’d heard being polite.

Nola spun in place, dropping a glass that shattered on the kitchen floor. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out as she seemed not to be able to get air in her lungs. She stared at her son, then her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed to the floor, landing on the broken glass. Blood flowed from her arm and her head where they were cut and Jaime couldn’t understand the jumbled thoughts that seemed to crowd each other out in her mind.

“Mommy?” he squeaked again. «Mommy!»

She didn’t respond at all.

He considered getting a Band-Aid from the high cabinet in the bathroom. Mommy had fixed all his cuts and scrapes growing up with dinosaurs, Mickey Mouse, and fire trucks. He never bled as much as his mother was, though. He didn’t think a Band-Aid would help. There was only one thing to do. His parents had taught him carefully to dial 9-1-1 in an emergency.

He’d heard his father’s thoughts when they taught him how to use the phone.

«I don’t know what good it will do if he can’t talk. Maybe just making the call and leaving the line open will be enough.”

Jaime went to the phone on the table, crawling up on his chair. He carefully dialed the three numbers.

“This is 9-1-1 emergency. State the nature of your emergency, please.”

Jaime thought really hard, trying to get the person on the phone to see his mother lying on the floor bleeding. There was no response. In fact, Jaime couldn’t hear her in his head at all.

“Hello? Can you speak?” the operator asked.

Jaime took a deep breath. Maybe no one could read thoughts over the telephone.

“Yes,” he squeaked.

“What is the nature of your emergency?”

“Mommy fell on broken glass. Lots of blood,” Jaime squeaked. Tears were welling up in his eyes.

“Can she speak to me?”

“Not awake.”

“I have located your address as 571 Crescent Drive and have alerted an ambulance. Help is on the way,” the operator said. “I’m transferring you to a nurse who will ask you some questions. Please stay on the phone, little girl.”

«Girl? I’m a boy!» Jaime thought at her. Then decided the telephone must change people’s out-loud voices, too. So, he just stayed on the phone staring at Mommy. He still couldn’t make sense of any of her thoughts. Then another voice came through the phone.

“This is Nurse Janet,” the voice said calmly and gently. “What is your name?”

“Jaime,” he said, trying to use the same calm tone through his tears.

“Jaime, can you see your mother?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me where she is bleeding.”

Jaime couldn’t tear his eyes away from his mother, constantly calling to her. «Wake up, Mommy. Nurse Janet wants to talk to you!»

“Her head and her arm.”

“Oh, dear. What part of her arm is bleeding?”

“Near her hand.”

“Jaime, this is very important. Some people are on their way to help your mommy, but she needs your help right away. Can you reach her and still talk on the phone?”

“Not supposed to take the phone off the table.”

“I’ll explain it all to your mommy. Right now, you need to take the phone close enough to touch her.”

The woman had a very nice voice, but Jaime wished she would just show him what he should do. The telephone didn’t let any thoughts come through.

“Is there a long cord on your phone?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“Jaime, this is very important. You need to wrap the cord around Mommy’s arm between her elbow and where she is bleeding. Do you know where her elbow is?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“Wrap the cord around her arm and twist it as tight as you can make it.”

“Mommy won’t like it,” Jaime complained. “Hurt Mommy.”

“Jaime, we need to do this so Mommy can wait for the ambulance. Please do what I’ve told you to do. I’ll explain to Mommy.”

She sounded urgent, even though he couldn’t hear her inside voice. He knew sometimes people tried to stay calm when they were very frightened. He did. And he was very frightened right now. It didn’t seem right, but Jaime picked up his mother’s bloody hand and wrapped the cord around and around her arm. There wasn’t as much blood coming out any longer. He couldn’t hear the phone as well now.

“The ambulance is almost there, Jaime. Tell your Mommy you love her. That will help her on the ride to the hospital,” Nurse Janet said.

“I love you, Mommy,” Jaime squeaked. Then he doubled it in his mind and screamed, «I love you, Mommy.»

Then the most remarkable thing happened. Jaime heard his mother speak in his mind.

«I love you, baby boy.»

Then her thoughts sort of disappeared.

There was a noisy whining sound outside and, in a minute, two men crashed through the front door. They ran into the kitchen talking fast and thinking faster than Jaime could comprehend. He dropped the phone and ran to his room. More people came into the house, bringing things the men needed and shouting in their minds.

Jaime was overwhelmed by the thoughts. He held his hands against his head and hid beneath his bed where the thoughts weren’t so noisy. In minutes, the ambulance drove away with Mommy. Jaime stayed hidden, quietly crying.

He’d spoken exactly fifty-two words in his life, and men came to take his mommy away in a red truck that made lots of noise.

Jaime and Daddy (David)

Jaime spent the rest of his day crying and calling out mentally to Daddy. Other people came in the house, jabbering with each other about helping repair things and who should bring meals. No one thought about Jaime.

David returned to the house late, frantically calling out for his son and searching the house.

“Jaime! Jaime! Where are you, son? Come here to Daddy. Please don’t be lost, baby boy.”

Jaime came out of his room and ran to his daddy’s voice. He was still crying and didn’t know what to do. David was just as relieved to see his son, but he continued to talk as he tried unsuccessfully to soothe Jaime.

“I can’t believe they just left you here! The stupid people! They couldn’t even keep Nola alive. And they left you here alone. I’m so glad you’re okay! I’ll sue the city and the hospital and every fucking one of them! Oh! Thank God, you’re okay.”

Jaime was thankful his daddy was home and holding him, but his father’s thoughts were a worse jumble than what he was saying.

We’re alone. How will we survive. Nola is dead. How can we go on? Everything is bad!

Jaime tried to ask him what dead meant, but his father, too, refused to respond to his thoughts. He was afraid to use his out-loud voice because when he used it Mommy fell down and they took her away. Everything was wrong and Jaime was hungry.

David finally understood that and managed to stop crying a little.

“My God! You’ve been here all afternoon alone. You must be starving. Don’t worry, son. We’ll get through this somehow. It’s just you and me now. We’ll manage. I don’t know how, but we’ll manage.”

He carried his son out of the room, even though Jaime was perfectly able to walk. Daddy seemed to need to hold him, so Jaime lay his head against his father’s strong shoulders and relaxed. He carried Jaime downstairs and out the broken door. In the kitchen, there was still broken glass and blood and the telephone on the floor.

They drove to the food place with Jaime in his car seat. At the restaurant, his father ordered Jaime’s favorite pancakes and syrup with a glass of milk. While Jaime ate, he kept trying to figure out what his father was thinking. His thoughts were a jumble, asking questions Jaime couldn’t answer.

What am I going to do without you? Who can I get to help? I need to call the office and tell them. How can I tell them? What can I tell them? How can I ever raise our son by myself? What made you fall? Nola, please don’t go!

Jaime ate pancakes while Daddy just drank coffee and made phone calls. When they got home, some neighbors were there with Uncle Kenny. He wrapped his big arms around both David and Jaime and held them for a long time. Jaime needed the bathroom, though, and began to squirm. David put him down. He ran upstairs to the bathroom so he wouldn’t wet his pants.

There were women in the kitchen cleaning up the glass and the mess. Uncle Kenny was working with men to repair the door the red truck men had broken in. Everyone’s thoughts were as jumbled as his father’s.

It’s too bad. Poor Jaime. How will David cope? We’d better get some food organized. I can watch Jaime while David makes arrangements. Did anyone check to see if things were all still here and nothing was stolen? Why didn’t we think to check on Jaime when they took Nola?

Daddy took Jaime to bed. After he was in his pajamas and snuggled under his blankets, David read him a story and turned out the light. There was still a lot of racket in the house with people talking and thinking. Jaime slipped out of bed to turn on his music. If he focused on listening to the music, he could block out the noise from people shouting in his head.

Eventually, he covered his head with his pillow and went to sleep.

Jaime understood one thing clearly: His out-loud voice was bad—even worse than being ignored. He’d spoken once and Mommy was never coming home again. He would never use his out-loud voice again.

Sadly, everyone still refused to answer him when he spoke to their heads with his inside voice. They just ignored him, unless he physically got their attention and pointed to what he wanted. They couldn’t ignore that and made a big fuss about all he needed to do was tell them.

It was frustrating. People talked about everything in their heads, including about Jaime, as if he wasn’t even there. A nice woman came to stay with him while Daddy went to work, but before too many days passed, Daddy’s work changed and he was at home a lot, working on his computer in the basement.

Jaime liked hanging out there with his father. The basement was quieter. And when his father was working, his mind was quieter and calmer. He got Jaime earphones so he could play his music without making noise in the ‘office.’ Jaime was happy there.

He did have to learn when he could and couldn’t interrupt his father. If his father was using his out-loud voice on the telephone, for example, Jaime was not to interrupt. Jaime knew where most things were in the house, so he could find where snacks were in the kitchen—he liked pudding—and could get his own plastic glass of water. He could use the bathroom and knew he had to stand on the stool to wash his hands afterward. He knew which handle was hot water and which was cold.

Sometimes, when he had his earphones on and wandered upstairs, he went to his room to read a book or get a toy. It wouldn’t be long before his father rushed in to see where he’d gone and breathed a sigh of relief when he found his son.

And David began to understand his son better all the time. He took time from his busy day to read Jaime stories and give him paper and crayons. He even set up an art place in a corner of his office. Jaime liked drawing and sometimes copied words or pictures from his books.

David spent time reading and practicing letters. He taught him how to spell his name. Jaime was a fast learner. He could see in his father’s mind what was wanted. It was easier to pick things out of his mind than it was to wait while he talked.

David began to think about school, something he would have left to Nola before. She’d been teaching him letters and numbers at home and Jaime would often sit quietly ‘reading.’ David didn’t know if he understood what he read or if he was just looking at pictures. He wondered how Jaime would do in a world where everyone talked. He read up on education for children with selective mutism and discarded most of it. Jaime wasn’t selectively mute. He never spoke. David read articles for communicating with the deaf, but Jaime heard just fine. It appeared the doctors’ diagnosis of autism was the only answer.

Then the question was whether to try mainstream education or to get him into a special education program. The problem with special education was that the operating assumption was that the child was slow at learning and had difficulty understanding instructions. Jaime had no problem understanding and learning. His responses were unorthodox, ranging from pointing and gesturing to occasional printed words as Jaime began to understand more language.

It was time to think about school.

David took Jaime to meet with a kindergarten teacher. The conversation was strained.

“He’s never spoken at all?” the teacher asked. She’d introduced herself as Miss Judy. Jaime and his father sat across from her at a little table on chairs that were much too small for the grownups. Miss Judy had immediately set paper and crayons in front of Jaime.

“Not a word,” David said. “He scarcely makes a sound even when he cries or laughs. When Jamie was born, his whole body shut down. He was rushed to intensive care and put in an incubator with breathing and feeding tubes. He was there for several days before he began to respond to stimuli. Doctors have proposed that the intense trauma after his birth resulted in a form of autism. Then last spring, he saw his mother bleed to death after a fall. That redoubled the trauma. We’ve been told not to try to get him to speak. If he can speak, it will come naturally. Eventually.”

“Oh, my. I’m not sure what to say, Mr. Stackhouse. I’m not usually a special ed teacher. Have you checked other programs?” Miss Judy asked.

“I don’t believe my son needs special education. He already knows his numbers and letters and can spell some words. He’s very intelligent. He just doesn’t talk, and I don’t want a well-meaning special education teacher trying to get him to talk,” David said.

“Hmm. In kindergarten, a substantial part of the curriculum is socialization. Children come from all backgrounds and this is an opportunity for them to learn about and from others. Much of that is through communication. If you would give me a couple of days to do some research, perhaps I can come up with a way to integrate Jaime into the class. I support your goals and my research is simply to see if I can find a way to advance them.”

“I will accept that and thank you for your efforts,” David said.

Jaime heard a very different conversation, though neither of the adults acknowledged what they were thinking. Miss Judy was very nice, but was at a loss for what to do. Jaime decided she really did want to have him in her class and was thinking of all the ways she could teach other children about something called ‘mutism.’ She didn’t seem to have any doubts that Jaime could learn in her class—perhaps faster than others his age.

Daddy was barely holding back his frustration. He was very protective of Jaime and wondered if he could believe Miss Judy or if this was just a wasted effort. Jaime decided he needed to help.

He drew a picture of Miss Judy. It wasn’t a Renaissance portrait, or even a good likeness. It was a woman with a ponytail and flowers on her dress. That much was clear. Under the picture, he carefully printed the word ‘NICE.’ He pushed the picture between his father and Miss Judy.

“It seems you have Jaime’s vote,” David laughed.

“That may be all that is necessary,” Miss Judy said. “Thank you, Jaime. May I keep the picture?”

Jaime could see she wanted to show it to another teacher when she ‘sorted things out.’ He nodded.

“I’ll be in touch on Wednesday afternoon,” Miss Judy said. “Thank you both for considering me as a possible teacher for Jaime.”

They left the school and Jaime could tell his father was feeling much better. They stopped for ice cream on the way home.

3
School

Miss Judy and Emily

Judy Dunlap had not been a kindergarten teacher long enough to become jaded and calloused to the ideals that brought her to the profession. She was twenty-four years old, had one year of experience behind her, and had nearly finished her master’s degree in education.

She looked at the drawing young Jaime had done of her and traced the word ‘NICE.’ She could not help but think the child had understood every word in the conversation between her and his father. And printing a word at just five years old, with no formal schooling, was advanced. If it weren’t for his muteness and lack of socialization he could probably have moved directly to first grade.

But how was she going to teach him in a class of twenty children, half of whom lived in non-English-speaking homes. She sat, sipping a glass of wine with her best friend and handed her the drawing.

“Done by one of your new students?” her friend signed. Emily Hearst had been deaf from birth, but it didn’t stop her from becoming best friends with Judy in college.

“He will be my student in two weeks,” Judy signed back. “He is mute—either psychosomatically or physically. I don’t know how to integrate him into the system. He hears and understands just fine, but how will he communicate with me or with other students?”

Emily looked at the picture again and finger-spelled N-I-C-E. Then she held her left hand palm-up in front of her and passed her right palm over it.

“Yes,” Judy signed. “He wrote that while his father and I were talking. I’m just so…”

Emily brought her fist to the side of her head, rapping gently as she scowled at her friend.

“What?” Judy asked. Emily repeated the sign.

“Dumb!”

“Why would you say such a thing?”

“You have the tool in your hands. Half your class doesn’t know English. Teach them all sign language at the same time.”

“Sign language! He’s not deaf!” Judy began. Then she realized she wasn’t deaf either. She signed to her friend to be understood. “Oh!”

Judy shook her head and repeated the sign for ‘dumb.’ She sometimes taught songs that had gestures or signs because the children found them fun. It involved more ways to learn than just listening. Why shouldn’t she teach sign language at the same time she taught English? Or any other subject for her kindergartners to learn.

“It makes so much sense!” Judy signed. “I have to make lesson plans!”

Emily laughed at her as Judy gathered her things and headed home. She had two weeks to prepare.

Jaime and Miss Judy and Juan

When Jaime and David arrived for the first day of kindergarten with all the other parents and children, the room looked much different than it had when they visited. The first and most obvious thing Jaime noticed was the alphabet characters posted in a neat row on one wall. When he’d been in the room before, the posters had capital letters and small letters. Now a hand image was beneath each letter.

The other thing that was unavoidable to notice was the chaos of thoughts flying around the room. He couldn’t tell who was thinking what and wished they would all just be quiet. He put his hands over his ears but that didn’t do anything for the inside voices. He repeated the sign to his father and then buried his face against his father’s chest. It wasn’t as effective as sheltering in his mother’s embrace, but it helped. He was soon able to filter out all the intruding thoughts.

The problem was that when he shut off everyone, he couldn’t hear Miss Judy’s thoughts either. She was the only one talking with her out-loud voice and her hands moved as she spoke. She said they would learn both English and sign language in the class.

Some of the adults who came with their children to the first day of school looked confused, but their thoughts weren’t in any words Jaime could understand. Then Miss Judy told the grownups they could leave now. David had talked to him about this and Jaime was prepared to stay with Miss Judy for a couple of hours.

Some of the other children were not prepared for this. They clung to their mothers—David was the only father in the room—and some began to cry. Miss Judy began singing a song and some of the children joined in. She signed as she went. Jaime tried to copy the gestures.

“Bye-bye, Mommy. I will see you soon. Don’t worry, Mommy. You’ll pick me up at noon. I’ll tell you all about my day, and all the things I learned to say. Bye-bye, Mommy. I will see you soon.”

Jaime wondered if the sign for Mommy and Daddy was the same. He would ask Miss Judy when he could understand more. Then she caught his eye as she changed the song to “Bye-bye, Daddy…” She brought her open hand from where it had tapped on her lower lip to tapping at the side of her forehead. Jaime grinned and copied the gesture, earning a smile from Miss Judy.

He worked hard on blocking out all the noise of the other children’s thoughts as their parents left them in the classroom. He had to listen carefully with his ears for Miss Judy’s instructions, as she led the class in other activities. She had two helpers in the class who explained things quietly to some of the children.

Miss Judy led the class in saying her name. She pointed to the letters in her name that were displayed on the wall, then wrote them on a whiteboard. She pointed to each letter on the board and made the letter sign for it while saying the name of the letter. Then she circled her whole name and made a new gesture. She brought her fingers and thumbs together and pointed to either side of her head, then brought her hands down in front of her. Jaime figured out that meant Miss Judy, since that’s what she kept saying.

Miss Judy led the class in the alphabet song, signing the letters as one of her helpers pointed at the letter and sign hanging on the wall. They sang the song several times and the class worked hard at copying the signs.

The other helpers had names, too, but Jaime was looking at the letters on the wall and trying to figure out what his name would look like. J-A-I-M-E. He practiced spelling his name and almost missed the class being divided into groups. One group went with each of the teachers to a different part of the room. Jaime’s group went to Miss Judy.

A boy sat alone sniffling. Jaime could tell he was upset with the day. Maybe he missed his mommy. Jaime still missed his mommy. He decided the boy needed a hug and went to him. The boy looked at him, but Jaime couldn’t understand anything the boy was thinking; just that he was very sad and upset. Jaime put an arm around the boy’s shoulders and gave him a hug while he led him to the group in front of Miss Judy. They sat together and Jaime could tell the boy felt a little better.

The next thing Miss Judy taught them was how to spell their names. She started by putting a hand on her chest, then tapping her index fingers together like a flat x. She repeated the signs saying, “My name is.” Then she spelled “Miss Judy” again. She finished that with the gesture she created for her name. Jaime could read her thoughts clearly now that everyone was in a different part of the room paying attention to the book one helper was reading and to the blocks the other helper was building with. He raised his hand.

“Yes, Jaime?” Miss Judy said, finger spelling his name.

Jaime copied the hand on chest and tapping his fingers together, then spelled his name. Miss Judy caught her breath and smiled broadly at him. She turned to the other children and repeated what Jaime had said and asked him to demonstrate. He introduced himself to his classmates. He thought only one had understood him, but soon his new friend raised his hand.

“Can you spell your name, Juan?” She wrote his name on the whiteboard.

Juan repeated the introduction gestures and said, “My name is Juan.” He got the ‘J’ correct, then hesitated over the next letter. Miss Judy held up two fingers close together and said, ‘U.’ Juan nodded and then completed the ‘A’ and ‘N.’

Jaime could feel the happiness of his new friend and now he knew his name. He nodded vigorously. He pointed at Juan and then fingerspelled J-U-A-N. Next, he put his hand on his chest and spelled J-A-I-M-E. The two were so involved in talking to each other, Miss Judy had to call their attention back to the class as the others in their group introduced themselves. Some were better or faster than others and some were much slower, but by the time his group moved to the helper reading a story, everyone in his group could fingerspell his or her name.

Jaime was proud of his accomplishment. He had learned how to sign his name and he had made a new friend. When his father picked him up at noon, he gladly signed his name. David was a little perplexed without the words accompanying the signs. Miss Judy intervened and spoke as Jaime signed.

“He is saying, ‘My name is Jaime.’ We’re learning sign language as we learn the alphabet.”

“That’s… That’s wonderful!” David said. “Where can I learn sign language?”

“Hmm. I didn’t think about that,” Judy said. “I’ll ask the school if I can hold a class for parents in the evening once a week. It’s a good idea. I’m so thankful Jaime has brought this new experience into our classroom.”

Jaime’s education had begun and his father began studying sign language at once.

After the first remarkable breakthrough day, kindergarten was kindergarten. Miss Judy and her helpers did all the regular kindergarten activities. They sang songs accompanied by sign language. Each day a child was invited to put the calendar day on the board. Disputes over toys and books were resolved. Discipline was exercised when necessary. Everything was accompanied by sign language.

The classroom volunteers were often no further ahead in sign language than the students were, but the results were so pleasing to Miss Judy that they applied themselves to learning as much as they could. The school approved Judy offering parents a class one evening a week. Many of the volunteers and other teachers attended when they could. Her friend Emily often joined her on those evenings to hold conversations with the parents, getting them acclimated to reading and responding in sign language.

While Jaime was a little ahead of his class, it was not noticeable since he never spoke. He liked to draw and even to print words. His friend, Juan, was often found at his side as they built with blocks, drove trucks around their little cities, and learned ever more English and sign language. Jaime learned Juan was from Mexico and soon developed a name sign that was faster than fingerspelling. He held his fingers in a v-shape and saluted with them. Before too long, his classmates had made up a name sign for Jaime, too. They simply passed their fingers over their lips in a zipper motion. David was alarmed with the sign, but Jaime, who had read his classmates’ thoughts when they started signing his name that way, seemed happy with it and introduced himself to people using the sign.

One of the most important things Jaime learned in kindergarten—though it wasn’t taught as a subject—was filtering out the thoughts from around him.

Miss Judy stopped to talk to David one day after the evening sign language course.

“I don’t know what the exact problem is, but I’ve read a bit about autism and it seems many autistic children are easily overwhelmed by the amount of activity around them,” she said. “I’ve noticed Jaime enthusiastically participating one moment and seeming to draw into himself the next. It’s as if he is trying to hide from the class. Sometimes, he even goes behind the whiteboard or behind one of the assistants to hide. Do you have experience in handling this?”

“Yes,” David admitted. “I hoped it wouldn’t become an issue in school. He seems hyper-sensitive to noise and commotion around him. Sometimes it catches up with him after the fact. He comes home from school and immediately goes to hide in his room. He puts on headphones I originally got him so he could watch TV or listen to music while I was working. Now his headphones are programmed for classical music that I download for him. The music seems to let him calm down and breathe.”

“Hmm. Headphones might create a problem in the classroom. He might not be able to hear instructions,” Judy said.

“That’s true, but he understands more sign language than I do already. I’m sure he can read your signs as you are instructing,” David said.

“Let’s try it. If it becomes a distraction to the other students, we might need to curtail their use. But it’s worth a try. I don’t want to lose him into some inner cavern where I can’t reach him.”

David explained the use of the headphones to Jaime before school and stressed how important it was to only use them when he was feeling overwhelmed. Jaime agreed and was happy to have his music when he needed it.

It was the beginning of Jaime’s quest to block out the mental sounds around him. He had used it in his home and sometimes when he was with his father shopping or going out to dinner. The music itself did not block out all the thoughts around him. It was focusing on the music that let him escape from the ever-present cacophony he was subjected to.

Solid objects had often been a refuge as it seemed most people did not have much range to their thought broadcasts. The whiteboard in his classroom was made of metal that the teacher could attach magnets to. Jaime found it was effective at blocking other people’s thoughts. When he hid behind a teaching assistant, she seemed to absorb the thoughts of others and he could only hear her thoughts.

But music was different. If he broke his concentration on the music, the thoughts of others were right there waiting for him. But as long as he let the music occupy his mind, the thoughts were kept at bay.

What was most puzzling and heartbreaking for Jaime, though, was that no matter how he thought to another person—any other person—that person ignored him. The only person who had ever spoken in his mind had been his mother, just moments before he lost her. He felt his father sometimes thinking love or pride to his son, but he never used words to express himself inside. He always spoke out-loud, and now used sign language with his son.

Even Jaime’s new friend, Juan, didn’t talk to him when he thought to him. Jaime wrote much of that off to Juan’s inability to communicate in English, though he was learning slowly. Jaime was learning some Spanish, too. As Juan learned English, he associated the Spanish word and Jaime learned from that.

Nor was Juan the only Spanish speaker in the class who was learning English. That group became close friends, separate from the kids who came to kindergarten knowing and speaking English.

Jaime missed his friends during the summer and David tried to arrange a meeting with one or more of them each week. He sent Miss Judy a thank you note.

Jaime

First grade was another new experience for Jaime. His teacher only knew a smattering of sign language and used it irregularly. While some of Jaime’s classmates understood sign language, many more did not. He was forbidden to use his earphones in class and it was frowned upon at recess and lunch. His teacher talked through her class, so students had to stay focused on what she was saying or what she assigned them to do. Many found that beyond their ability.

At least the uniform activity of the class kept most of the randomness of students’ thoughts at bay. There were those in the class, though, who simply could not maintain focus for more than a few minutes at a time and their chaotic thoughts disrupted Jaime’s concentration. He had to focus harder on blocking out their thoughts.

When his teacher found out he didn’t talk, she started badgering him to say something. David came to the school and put the teacher straight with the help of Miss Judy. Mrs. Connelly did not appreciate it. By this time, Jaime could print out responses quickly and had even begun to learn to type, so Mrs. Connelly pretty much ignored him from that point onward.

As if I don’t have enough problems to deal with in this class, Jaime heard her thinking.

He tried not to be a problem. He passed the tests she gave him and that was all that was required to advance him to the next grade. Her final report, however, stated that he lacked socialization and should be in a special needs class.

With the number of friends Jaime had, it wasn’t obvious that he lacked socialization, but the school responded with an assessment. The State of Oregon required that the school accommodate all special needs and the Federal Government provided funding. They hired a sign language interpreter, not to interpret to Jaime, though she signed everything in the class, but to interpret Jaime’s sign language to the teacher.

This teacher was more accommodating and called on Jaime in class, waiting for the interpreter to tell her what he was saying. Jaime didn’t need the interpreter’s signs to understand the teacher, but paid attention to them anyway. Other students began picking up signs and occasionally asked the interpreter what a sign meant or how to sign something. By the end of the second month of second grade, nearly everyone used Jaime’s name sign and spoke his name as Zipper Lips, or just Zip.

As juveniles often do, they frequently asked for the sign for naughty words. The interpreter declined to give them the sign, but Jaime was now proficient enough on his computer at home that he could look up signs for anything he didn’t know in the internet. He often supplied the requested sign to his classmates. He was happy his friends who had been in his sign language kindergarten class had continued to use sign—at least when around him—and learned more sign language as they progressed in school. Only Juan and four others from his kindergarten were still in his class by the time he reached third grade.

4
Stranger

Jaime and the Stranger

Jaime’s ability to block out others got better as he got older. He couldn’t avoid some of his classmates’ thoughts and by the end of the day, he was tired of blocking things and let much more slip through.

David still worked from home with occasional daytime visits to his office. He’d changed jobs to have a more flexible schedule so he could be with his son when needed. He was happy Jaime had made some friends and visited them at their houses or invited them to his house. David noted that all Jaime’s friends had been ESL students in kindergarten and were fluent signers.

One day after school, the two went to the grocery store for their weekly shopping trip. Jaime was tired and immediately put his headphones on to begin playing music and blocking out the thoughts of others. He wasn’t really paying attention to much else and wandered up an aisle in the store without his father.

Oh, yes. There’s a good one, he heard in his mind. It so shocked Jaime that he came to a dead stop and looked around him. At the end of the aisle he saw a man in a dark suit staring at him.

We have to get the house set up. And I can’t handle a little kid yet. But he’s perfect. I can tell by his eyes and the headphones. He has trouble blocking people out. I’ll have to let him pass for now, but I’ll be back. He’s one of the gifted ones. Together, we’ll rule the world.

Jaime wanted to shout at the intruder with his mind, but instead, he reflexively clamped down on all his own thoughts, burying them in the music that played through his headphones. He turned and ran back up the aisle, looking for his father as the stranger seemed to laugh in his head.

He was blinded to reason, not knowing where his father was. He saw the heavy door of the meat department ahead and rushed through it. The thoughts of the man, and everyone else in the store, were immediately muted. He decided to stay there until he could locate his father.

That presented a problem. He couldn’t hear anyone in the store and the cooler he’d rushed into was cold. Packages and haunches of meat lay on shelves and hung from hooks. And once the door was closed, it was dark.

He thought the man would probably leave the store once he’d disappeared. He would wait a few minutes and then push open the latch from the inside of the cooler to find his father.

By the time Jaime had managed to throw his entire weight against the plunger that would open the cooler door, his lips were blue and he was shivering. He stumbled out of the cooler and practically into the arms of a butcher.

“Here he is! I’ve got him!” the butcher called out. A flood of voices erupted in Jaime’s mind. Many were calling his name in his ears. Then he located his father and called out to him in his head. His father ran toward the meat department and caught his son in his arms. Jaime quickly scanned the thoughts he could hear in the store, but found no sign of the man he had heard in his head.

Had the man been talking to him? Or was he just thinking? Jaime couldn’t tell.

Jaime

Jaime hid in his room. The man in the grocery store had frightened him. Jaime’s closet offered some refuge from intruding thoughts, especially when he put on his headphones and concentrated on the music. He knew metal walls were the most effective at blocking others’ thoughts. When he rode in the car, he only ever heard his father’s thoughts beside him. With the creativity of a nine-year-old, he had ‘borrowed’ aluminum foil from the kitchen drawer and taped it to the walls of his closet. He believed it helped.

In the sanctuary of his closet, he slowed his speeding heart and thought about what had happened.

He had read a stranger’s thoughts in the store. They frightened him. But Jaime had to wonder how those thoughts had cut through the barrier of the music he was using to block others. Either the man simply broadcast his thoughts more loudly than most people, or…

Jaime’s heart nearly stopped beating. Or he had been broadcasting specifically to Jaime.

In all his life, he had experienced only one time that a person spoke to him in his head. His mother had directed her thoughts in response to his declaration that he loved her, just before she died. He had certainly experienced people thinking about him. It wasn’t that unusual. When he was introduced to teachers and other students who were told he didn’t speak, they always wondered what kind of kid he was and what caused his muteness. But no one tried to inside-voice speak to him.

As long as he could remember, Jaime had thought this was simply because other people didn’t like him and wouldn’t acknowledge him when he spoke to them in his head. When he began to learn sign language, he realized that other kids spoke to him in sign while their brains thought about what they were saying. Their thoughts were focused on their hands, though, and not on Jaime.

Jaime slowly came to the conclusion that other people were deaf in their heads. If he hadn’t learned sign language, he would eventually have had to use his out-loud voice or people would continue to just ignore him. At least now he had friends and could talk to them. They still ignored him in their heads, but they spoke with their hands.

What shocked him to silence when he heard the man in the store was the direction of his thoughts and the malevolence behind them. He was not a nice man. If the man had been ‘ready’ and Jaime had been older, Jaime knew he would have been kidnapped. But why? What did he need to be ready for?

And had the man been able to hear him?

Jaime had closed out most of the world with his headphones but he’d been thinking his own thoughts, mostly about school and Halloween coming soon. He’d already begun to meet new people in classes, but most of his classmates didn’t know sign language. Had the man heard his thoughts? Jaime had automatically closed himself off to other people when he heard the man in his head. He’d never felt the need to do that before. No one had ever heard him. He realized now that it was a skill he needed to practice regularly. He just needed to figure out what he had done to block anyone else from hearing him. What was it?

This problem occupied Jaime until his father found him for dinner.

Kenton

Kenton desperately wanted to be a telepath. He knew it was possible. He’d run all kinds of tests on students at the university. So much so that he’d gained a bit of a reputation as a crackpot. He’d only verified one actual telepathic case, but she had insisted on complete anonymity. He couldn’t use her data in any summary paper. He’d decided to carefully alter his findings in other instances for his dissertation.

It was real data, after all. It simply wasn’t the data from the subjects he cited. He felt justified in it. He barely passed his defense. His professors acknowledged his research but were all of the opinion the evidence cited was an outlier. He’d couched the material in an investigation of inner monologue and inner dialog. He explored some new data indicating that some people could not recognize their own inner monologue and believed they heard voices from outside their own head.

He speculated on all kinds of reasons for this, but his firm conclusion was that it was dangerous in the treatment of a person to ignore the idea that they might actually hear voices that emanated from external sources. The university had granted his doctorate, though there were committee members who still considered his study to be paranormal and not within the realm of real science.

What he needed was more examples, and there was no better place to get them than in his counseling practice. It was slow to gain momentum, but eventually he would get there.

Part two of his plan was to create a refuge where he could study people he identified as legitimately hearing voices in their heads without the interference of outside influences. This was sped along by two external factors.

The first was a visit he received from two men who identified themselves only as Smith from the FBI. They had read and studied his dissertation! Kenton immediately tensed up when they began discussing the possibility of his participation in studies they were conducting themselves. It was soon obvious they were not considering him as a researcher, but as a subject.

Kenton immediately left the country. He stayed in seclusion in India for two years, pretending to be a monk. He believed, rightly, that having this on his resume would shield the seriousness of his research. No one had seriously come to India to study the paranormal since the Beatles found enlightenment sixty years earlier.

He returned to Portland and immediately rented an office that was in the build-out stage. He had very specific requirements regarding the materials to be used, and special features to be added. He told the contractors that he wanted his office to be fully shielded so that clients could not be distracted by cell signals or WiFi. The contractor considered this reasonable for psychological counseling and built the Faraday cage-like structure around his entire office. The only access to the outside world was a wired internet connection and a landline phone.

The other thing that happened at that time, and was the reason he was able to afford the extraordinary adjustments to his office, was his inheritance. A rich old aunt had passed away and when all was said and done, Kenton discovered he was the sole heir to both her fortune and her property.

The property was a historical residence and he was able to update the interior, but was forbidden from altering the appearance of the property in any way. He did all the modifications internally, hiring subcontractors to follow his plans.

He wondered why there was only spotty cell phone service in the old buildings when it was fine and strong outside. His discovery was that the original lath and plaster walls were covered in chicken wire to help hold the plaster. It created a natural Faraday cage and inspired Kenton to enhance that feature throughout the renovation.

Only the upgrades to electrical and plumbing lines and the heating system needed to be permitted and inspected. And he had plenty of money and time to get things done over the course of a few years. Soon now, he would have his refuge of absolute silence where he could both study his subjects and be free of spying by the government’s microwaves.

Jaime and Mrs. Chapman

For Jaime, third grade was an important year of self-discovery. He learned arithmetic, conducted science experiments, read interesting stories, used a keyboard, and learned to read maps. With his best friends still in his class, he learned more sign language, Spanish, and handwriting.

Oregon did not require the teaching of cursive handwriting in elementary school, but their teacher felt it was a valuable skill and invited her students to stay in the classroom during recess one day a week to practice the skill. The six friends took advantage of the class and soon were writing in a beautiful script.

Cursive writing, Mrs. Chapman felt, had several benefits. She wished it was taught in elementary school, or even kindergarten when letters were taught. Writing in cursive was more natural because it made each letter a single continuous stroke. Printing disrupted the pattern recognition for children. The strokes were separate and children often forgot what stroke came next when their hand stopped still. It prevented much letter reversal. In printing, for example, both ‘b’ and ‘d’ began with a single vertical stroke. Then students had to stop and determine whether the circle belonged on the left or the right for the letter they wanted. With cursive, the flow of the two characters was different, one starting with the vertical loop and the other starting with the circle.

She’d also noted improved motor skills and word recognition when students learned cursive writing. Cursive writing required students to cross the midline of the body with their hands, improving their coordination. Words were connected together and were not seen as a string of individual letters.

Of course, students had to learn to read printed words, but she felt something vital was lacking in their education if they did not learn to write in cursive.

A key element was fostering artistry, and that is how Mrs. Chapman positioned teaching script. The six friends who took advantage of the class were soon writing in a beautiful script. Unlike the standard script that had been taught in schools until the twenty-first century, Mrs. Chapman taught her students to write Spencerian script. She called the class ‘calligraphy’ and her students worked hard to create the artistic letterforms.

At the end of the school year, half a dozen students had mastered the careful shaping of letterforms into the elegant script. And their classmates, who had not taken the one recess a week instruction, couldn’t read what the six had written! It was like they were a secret club.

Of course, they already had a secret language as few of the students knew sign language. Mrs. Chapman used her instruction time in handwriting to learn more sign language in the absence of the interpreter. She was soon able to hold basic conversations with them in sign. She wasn’t sure what set these students apart from others. Five were ESL students who spoke better English than most of her native English speakers. And one was the strange boy who didn’t speak at all, but constantly showed his intelligence in his writing, math, and science skills.

Jaime liked Mrs. Chapman. His first and second grade teachers mostly ignored him and his ESL friends in the classroom and let the interpreter take care of including them. Mrs. Chapman actually talked to him and waited for the interpreter to speak his signed response. She made sure the rest of the class paid attention to each person who was called upon to speak.

When he and his friends were promoted to fourth grade, they all missed Mrs. Chapman. While they were still in the same class, the teachers paid less attention to the group. They continued to meet once a week to practice their calligraphy, and often sent notes to each other that no one else could read.

Jaime and David

Things changed drastically in middle school. Students came from three different elementary schools and were thrown together in a mix that did not acknowledge existing friendships. With three times as many students, the clique of six friends was broken up into different home rooms and then moved between classes. They did not always stay with the same group of students all day.

For Jaime, this created even more issues. The school had two deaf students in Jaime’s grade. The school was legally obligated to provide an interpreter, but to economize, they lumped Jaime with the two deaf students so they would only require one interpreter. They were told they needed to take the same classes because the interpreter could not be in two places at once. More of their instruction was delivered by computer to cut the costs of the interpreter even further.

One of the deaf students was considerably behind their class in just about everything and really didn’t care. If Jaime had thought everyone ignored him, it was nothing compared to Samuel. Even his sign language was sloppy. Jaime didn’t think he’d ever handed in an assignment and he didn’t pay attention to the interpreter.

The other deaf student, Belle, was bored to tears by the classes. She’d already studied many of the things they were learning on her computer and was way ahead of the class. But, like Jaime, she was held back in the slow learners class by virtue of the other student.

The number of students running and laughing in the halls and trying to focus on classes created a non-stop mash-up of thoughts bombarding Jaime’s head. It taxed all his skills for blocking out the thoughts of others. The first two weeks of classes were exhausting for him, not because of the workload, but because of the effort it took to block so many voices. In middle school, he was not allowed to use his headphones at all—even during breaks. Neither teachers nor the administration would budge on the policy.

The operating assumption among most students and the faculty alike was that the deaf students and the mute boy were stupid. No one bothered learning sign language and other than the scattered few who had shared his kindergarten class, students shouted at them, if they bothered to recognize them at all. Jaime didn’t need the increased volume and the two deaf students still couldn’t hear them, so it was a wasted effort.

Jaime also recognized that the interpreter they were assigned was not very good. She frequently simplified things too much, did a lot of fingerspelling, and just got things wrong. Since all three of the sign language students had to sit together for the convenience of the interpreter, Jaime often got their attention and corrected the signs. Since he could hear the thoughts of the teacher, he could clarify some of the things he or she said.

By the end of the first term, however, it was difficult for any of the teachers to deny Jaime and Belle had established themselves at the head of the class in all areas except class participation. It was obvious that something had to be done.

Jaime and David were called into the principal’s office with the interpreter to discuss the problems he was creating in class by signing to the other deaf students during class.

“I’ve talked to my son about the classroom situation,” David said. “He has explained that the sign language interpreter is really not very good and he has to clarify what she has signed for the deaf students. He can hear the teacher and knows when it is not being interpreted correctly.”

“I beg your pardon,” the interpreter said. “I do a perfectly fine job of signing and he can’t possibly understand more of what the teacher says than I do!”

“You don’t understand it either. That’s why you get it wrong so often,” Jaime signed. David interpreted for the principal.

“Okay. Let’s calm down. Gladys, I don’t think you are needed in this discussion. I don’t want you feeling like you need to defend yourself in a discussion that is really about Jaime’s progress. Mr. Stackhouse can interpret for his son. We’ll talk about the arrangements later,” the principal said.

The interpreter huffed and left the room. Everyone else breathed a sign of relief.

“Jaime, I’m aware that you are a hearing student, and that you are attempting to help. Your deaf classmate, Belle, has transferred to an all-online learning program. Samuel is not improving even with your help. So, I don’t think you are needed as an interpreter and I don’t think you need an interpreter. Your grades from the previous semester are superb. You should be very proud of them.”

“Thank you,” Jaime signed.

“We will have an independent evaluation of the interpreter who has been in your classes to determine if she is doing the job she says she is. But that will take a while. I know the classes you’ve been in are not challenging you any more than they did Belle. But if you are transferred into the classes you’d like to be in, you will have to depend on your ears for instruction.”

“That’s fine,” Jaime signed. “I like that better. The interpreter was a distraction.”

“There is a downside for this. Any communication you have for your teachers will need to be in writing. That will limit class participation.”

Jaime carefully penned a note on a pad of paper in elegant Spenserian script.

The principal read the note and laughed.

“You may need to print your communications. I’m not sure your teachers can read this script—lovely as it is.”

“It seems the school system is not living up to its legal responsibilities,” David said. “I’m not sure that passing notes is the same assistive technology as having a competent sign language interpreter.”

“It’s okay, Dad,” Jaime signed.

The principal sighed.

“I’m not an enemy here,” the principal said. “I want Jaime to succeed. He is at the head of his class in terms of his grades this term. Belle chose to move to all computer-delivered instruction because she works so far ahead of her class. I would guess she will graduate a year or possibly two years ahead of her class. I can offer the same alternative to Jaime. I have to say, though, my personal observation is that Jaime does quite well in the classroom environment. Most of his teachers agree, though not all teachers are as effective as others. How about if we try this for a term and I’ll hand-pick the instructors to match Jaime’s subject matter. They will be instructors who are the most open to a diverse student body. Perhaps the whole class will learn something new.”

“This is great, Dad,” Jaime signed. “Let’s try it!”

“My son believes it is a good opportunity. He’s willing to try it.”

“Let’s take a look at your requested classes,” the principal said.

5
Listening vs. Hearing

Jaime

The new arrangement worked well for Jaime. To start with, he was no longer deposited into the slowest learning class. He could understand why Belle had chosen computer instruction, but Jaime often got more from the teacher’s thoughts than he did from the words. He was becoming better at filtering out thoughts from his classmates, while letting the thoughts of his teacher through.

Selective hearing, he thought. In the early days of his education, some teachers had determined that he had selective muteness and tried to force him to talk aloud. He read up on the subject online and one search led to another.

His research showed that selective hearing was practiced by almost everyone who could pay attention to one aural input while ignoring all or most others. People often did it in environments where several people were talking, but they were only paying attention to one. People let themselves get so absorbed by movies or television or even music that they didn’t hear anything else. In fact, that was the technique Jaime had used when he put on his headphones.

He had to practice selective hearing in his head as well as his ears.

Of course, sometimes a stray thought caught his attention. It wasn’t intentional, but he found himself suddenly listening to another person. At first, it was difficult to zero in on who he was listening to. By the end of middle school, he was able to identify the thinker almost as readily as his ears could identify a speaker.

Everyone had what he considered a different head taste. It was like the pitch, tone, and accent of an out-loud voice that would distinguish between one person and another. He made a practice of sampling the head taste of the people around him so he could tell quickly who was thinking when he heard something in his head.

His last year in middle school, Jaime had become painfully aware of the physical changes taking place in nearly everyone around him—and, indeed, in himself as well. He might not have noticed it so soon had it not been so loudly thought about by so many of his classmates—male and female. Girls were developing secondary sexual characteristics and the boys around him had begun to notice. Their shapes were changing and the boys were reacting to the visual stimuli—like breasts and butts.

At the first mention of the subject through a stray thought from one of the boys in his social studies class, Jaime was suddenly fascinated with the subject and found changes in his own body that were making themselves known.

Girls, as well, were noticing changes in the boys. A girl might thrill to the sound of a boy’s voice that had shifted from a soprano to a deep baritone. Boys who grew taller than the girls were noticed. All through their schooling, most of the girls had been taller than most of the boys. Muscle mass increased on some boys and that was noticed as much by girls as breasts were by boys. Some boys were already shaving before they reached their teens.

Jaime tried not to be a head voyeur, but it seemed the thoughts of sex were the ones screamed loudest by the pubescent boys and girls alike. He was amazed at how confused most were about the actual biology that was involved and determined to educate himself online.

David did not believe in restricting Jaime’s internet access through parental controls. He felt children in general self-regulated what they looked at through their own interests. If Jaime saw something like a discussion of transsexuality, he would read it if it interested him and would not read it if he found it uninteresting. They talked about what was online a lot. Jaime recognized the dangers of social media and really didn’t use it much. He found talking to people he couldn’t read mentally was exhausting and undependable.

When it came to sex, his education took several late nights on his computer. He was enlightened about great swaths of human sexuality. He found how the parts were supposed to fit together, what the major stimuli were, and the risks in engaging in sex. It was almost more than he wanted to know and he was thankful he could not ride in the heads of those he saw on the computer.

It took much more effort to block the thoughts of others as he moved to high school and began encountering people who actually did have experience, or at least imagined they did. Apparently, some had watched the same videos he had because their imagined exploits matched those he’d seen online remarkably closely.

While home was a refuge in the evening after a day of filtering out thoughts, Jaime still sought out ways to make his filters easier and more automatic. He’d practiced using music as a means of filtering out extraneous mental input since he was very young. As a result, he’d fallen in love with orchestral music. When the music didn’t have words, he was free to just float on its melody and release his thoughts. It was like meditation to him.

He also discovered that anything that focused people’s thoughts on a single subject tended to quiet a room full of noisy minds. He wondered if teachers knew how few people in their classroom focused on what they were saying. There were a couple of classes that were really interesting and people’s minds were occupied with a single thing. Most classes left students’ minds scattered to the wind, so to speak.

Whenever a group of people were caught in a single experience, like a movie, they focused on that experience to the exclusion of all other thoughts. Or at least of most other thoughts. The movie theater was a place of mental quiet for Jaime as he merely rode the waves of people’s emotions as they watched the movie.

He spent at least one afternoon or evening each weekend at a concert or a movie. But once back in school on Monday, he would be bombarded with the typical thoughts of teenagers. Here he found sporting events were almost as good as concerts. The day of a school sporting event, most thoughts ran in the same channels—some deeper than others. It was like listening to people speaking in unison instead of all speaking about different things at the same time.

Jaime found himself at a movie one Saturday afternoon, anticipating a relaxing time with the audience—of which there weren’t too many people anyway—focusing on one thing and leaving his mind relatively free. A row ahead of him, he recognized a burly boy from the football team, which had won an important game the night before. He didn’t recognize the girl he was with, but she seemed tense. As soon as the lights went down and the movie started, her thoughts started to intrude on his own. They ran contrary to the thoughts shared by most of the movie audience.

I can’t believe I agreed to a date with Tom. All the girls warned me he was an octopus. If he tries to feel me up again, I’ll leave. I swear I will.

At the same time, Jaime became aware of the boy’s, Tom’s, thoughts.

I am definitely going to bust a nut in this virgin. She plays hard to get, but Dan said he got to second base just by kissing her. She is so hot!

The thoughts of the two continued to run counter to the movie for a while and Jaime was able to shut them out until a quiet and sweet scene in the movie left everyone sighing together. Suddenly the girl had an alarming thought.

Oh, my God! He’s got his hand on my breast! When did that happen? I didn’t even feel it! I don’t want it there. What should I do? It would be stupid to make a big deal about it now that it’s done. I don’t even know how long he’s been squeezing me. And it feels kind of good. No! I don’t want this! I’ll wait for a scene with action and shift my position so he can’t reach it. Damn! I wish it didn’t feel so good!

I knew it, the boy thought. She’s hot. Dam! Her nipple popped up hard as a rock. I can’t wait to suck on it. She’s got such smooth legs and a short skirt. Like she was just ready for this all along. This cherry is going to pop tonight!

When did he put his hand on my leg? God! That kiss on my ear was just too much! I should have worn tights or pantyhose. And jeans instead of a skirt. What was I thinking? Oh, shit! I’m gonna kiss him!

Jaime observed all this from behind the couple. It was truly distracting from the movie. He watched her turn her face toward the boy and kiss him. He was surprised but got right into it. The thoughts were less orderly as the kiss progressed.

Little silk panties.

When did I put my hand on his cock?

Yeah. You like me pinching your little nipple, don’t you?

I’ll just relax my legs a little. His hand feels so good there.

She’s wet already. Her panties are soaked.

Rub! Rub right there!

The movie was far from over, but Jaime got up and left the theater.

Jaime had never encountered another person who could communicate in their head. At least, no one but his dying mother had ever spoken to him. He often tested his theory that people were generally head deaf by speaking in his head to someone. Occasionally, a person would pause, but then would continue on their way without acknowledging the idea. Jaime modified his opinion to believing there were people who weren’t originally head deaf but had trained themselves not to accept mental communication.

He would have been surprised to find a teen in a school across town who had a different experience.

Trayce

Trayce had an active imagination. She was very creative and had begun writing little stories when she was in elementary school. In middle school, her imagination had been lit on fire. She discovered web sites where people posted fan fiction for some of her favorite stories. She began writing stories herself and posting them online.

Of course, biology caught up with her in middle school as well. Her mother told her it was all just part of becoming a young woman and had given her hygiene instructions and talked to her lovingly about how her body was changing. Trayce caught overtones from her mother that said she was very concerned about her daughter maturing and would talk to her father about whether she was handling it right. Trayce thought it was odd how she had those impressions from her mother, but she often got them from her father as well. She always knew what kind of mood he was in and what he wanted to do on the weekend.

One day she had decided to ship a story about a relationship between two boys in her favorite fantasy novel. ‘To ship,’ she had found out the year before, was to create a story about a relationship between two characters in a story who didn’t have that type of relationship in the original.

She was in her study hall and had finished her math assignment, so decided to start writing the story about the two boys. She hadn’t gone far when one of her characters came to life in her head and began talking to her.

I really like him. Yeah, we compete on the football field, but it’s a game. Trash talking is just part of the game. I don’t really hate him. But what can I do about it? If the guys found out I liked him, I’d be finished. As it is, I have to leave the showers when he walks in or I’d be rock hard in an instant. I think I might love him.

Trayce scribbled the words down as quickly as she could. She’d heard of people who had characters so real they dictated the story, but this was the first time she’d heard one of her own. Of course, that was when the class bell rang and everything was disrupted. She put away her writing and went to her next class.

Trayce was sad that all of her characters didn’t talk to her like that. And sometimes when she sat to write about one thing, another character she hadn’t even invented yet would intrude on her thoughts and she had to change everything to accommodate the new character. That was even more exciting—a character who took over the story and all she had to do was write down what she said.

The ideas came to her so fast that she despaired of being able to ever complete a story before her mind jumped to another.

Discipline, she thought. I need to teach myself to focus on one thing at a time and ignore the other things.

It was a difficult process, but gradually she learned to separate herself from the characters and treat them as things she could control. And if she couldn’t control a character, she could shut them off and not think about them. Sometimes they would return to her and sometimes she would lose them, but she decided that was just part of the creative process and if she thought of them once, she could probably think of them again.

“You bitch,” snarled a girl with a locker near hers. “It’s taken me three months to find you, but I’m going to rip you apart.”

Trayce did not recognize that she was the one being talked to until the girl grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.

“Don’t ignore me, you little whore. How did you get hold of my journal? I know it was in my bag. When I saw that story on Willow Works, I made sure it was safe. It’s never been out of my room since. But you wrote a sequel and it’s word for word what I put in my journal. You don’t have the right to steal my things and put them up where everyone can see them.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Trayce said. “I didn’t steal anyone’s journal. Really! My stories are just things that pop into my head and I write them down. I don’t know what story you’re talking about.”

“Oh, yes you do. I read it three times to be sure it was the same as my journal. It’s the one you shipped about Janey and Alexandra getting stranded in the forest.”

“That’s about characters from the Dreamboats saga. I just made it up.”

“You mean you disguised it. It’s what I did last summer. I met Sally at summer camp and we hit it off. We snuck off into the woods one night to be together.”

“That’s not what happened in that story.”

“I said you disguised it. And then you wrote a sequel and had them getting together in school. When she read it, she refused to have anything more to do with me! She accused me of being you. She thought I’d posted our private thing for everyone to see. I hate you!”

“But I didn’t!” Trayce complained. “I don’t even know who you are. All I know is you are in the same study hall. I don’t have any idea what you are talking about with your journal.”

“I’ll get hold of you someday. I’ll find you where no one can see us and I’ll make you pay. I loved Sally and you made her run away from me. I’ll kill you.”

Waves of hot anger radiated off the girl. Trayce still didn’t know her name. She could just see the ways the girl thought of killing her and it made her physically ill. Trayce ran to the restroom and threw up. She didn’t want to go back to class, but there were still two periods left in the day.

When she got home that night, she went to the Willow Works story site and removed the two stories. It made her sad because they were the highest scoring stories she’d written so far. She didn’t realize writing could be so dangerous.

Trayce didn’t write for a couple of weeks after that. Whenever a new character popped into her mind, she vigorously shut it off.

No. I’m not going to write about you! You’ll just get me in trouble!

Of course, the more she tried to shut them off, the more characters clamored for her attention.

Finally, she gave in and began writing stories again. Each time she imagined a new character for a story, or imagined an existing character who found his or her voice, she was elated and began furiously writing down what was said. But in the quiet of her bedroom when she transcribed her story to the computer, she would often realize how scattered her character was and how ridiculous it seemed. She would keep the voice and rewrite for consistency and storyline.

Trayce started participating in online writing groups and contests, talking about the voices she heard when thinking about a character. She was pleasantly surprised at the number of other young writers who agreed. They critiqued each other’s work and called Trayce’s stories ‘character driven.’ Her writing friends advised her to write ‘by the seat of her pants’ and let the characters tell the story.

The problem with all this was that the people giving her advice had no more—if as much—experience than she had. When she actually took a class in high school in creative writing, she was shocked to find her stories were really quite shallow and had no plot or real storyline. Her fans were other writers like her and a limited number of readers who were specifically into the fan fiction she posted online.

The class exposed her to plot development, story arcs vs. character arcs, planning, and outlining. She also learned about The Hero’s Journey and was encouraged to find and develop her own stories—perhaps based on the experiences of her own life.

It was while she was deeply involved in the process of plotting a new story in her room that tragedy struck.

Trayce was shaken from her deep concentration and jerked herself upright screaming. Her mother rushed to the room, finding Trayce’s laptop on the floor as the girl sobbed in the middle of the bed, crying “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

It was not long after that police arrived at their door to ask Mrs. Lombard to come and identify the body of her husband, killed in a drunk driving accident earlier in the day.

Trayce quit writing.

6
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