The Thoughts of the People

You know, it’s not every day that you’re able to read other people’s minds. In fact, most people will probably never be able to know what other people think. Well, that’s where I come in.

My name is Redacted and I think I’ll let you in on the lifestyle of someone who hears the thoughts of the masses.

It wasn’t a gift from birth or anything, It just slowly developed while I was In junior high, going through a normal school system in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. The first time I remember actually hearing it I had just gotten home from school, and my mom was waiting in the kitchen when I got inside. I put  my stuff onto the couch in the living room, as was usual, planning on moving it later. But as I did it, my mom said, “I wish he wouldn’t put his stuff there all the time, It’s a real pain to move.” Assuming this was about my school stuff, I walked back to the couch and got my stuff, and brought it up to my room, where I would do my homework later. I then went back downstairs and proceeded as usual, making myself a sandwich to tide me over until dinner, then went back upstairs to finish my homework.

Later that evening, as we were sitting down for dinner, my Dad was reading the news off of his phone, when he remarked, “Well that’s stupid.” In an oddly monotonous voice for such a strong reaction. I then remembered that when Mom was complaining about my school stuff, she’d spoken in an almost Identical voice. 

“What’s stupid?” I asked my dad, sticking with the assumption that he’d said it out loud.

“Did I say that out loud?” He responded, sounding almost as genuinely confused as I was. 

“It’s nothing”, He concluded, then continued scrolling through whatever he was looking at.

Now at this point, I was starting to be rather confused, thinking about why they’d spoken so strangely, when I wondered if those were their thoughts that I was hearing, so I figured that I’d do some more testing. Later that night, my mom came into my room and I heard her say, in that all-too-strange voice “Why am I doing this? We aren’t that close anyways”, and I noticed that her lips weren’t moving as she said it. She proceeded to sit down on the chair at my desk in the corner of my room, and make sure I was all right. It all amounted to nothing, just a surface level parental check-up, and as she left my room and I said “I love you” to her, she said, or maybe thought, “I hope he means it, maybe it’s a sign that we’re getting closer as a family”. It was as that point that I took it upon myself to ask her what she was thinking about, and my suspicions were proven correct when she said she was hoping that our familial bond had gotten stronger.

I thanked her for her transparency, and said goodnight. Now that I knew what I could do, I began to wonder to what extent it worked. Was it only on people I know? I decided I’d test it out when I went to school tomorrow. 

The next morning, I woke up and went through my morning routine, hearing my mom’s perpetual thoughts about her need for coffee, but realized I had to be looking at someone to hear their thoughts. Later that morning, as I got onto the bus, I realized a few things. Most Importantly, the bus driver did not, in reality, care for us past the extent of keeping her job.

However, I learned that if I really focused on someone, then I could hear their thoughts louder. I found that when I did this, people looked at me strange, as If I was staring intensely, (which I probably was), so I decided to not do that anymore until I’d obtained some large-lense sunglasses or something similar. When I got to school, I immediately looked around at the teachers, most of which were merely enjoying their morning cup of coffee, but a few of the younger ones were scrambling about to get their lesson’s ready, and the gym teacher, who was probably in her late sixties, was contemplating getting life insurance. Next, the students, who, at a glance, all had very loud thoughts, and their thought- voices were far more high pitched, almost the same rise in pitch as from a typical adult to a typical child. However, that pitch never modulated, and after about 30 seconds of this torment, I stared at the wall, content  until class began. School became significantly easier, given that I could see the teacher’s thought process while describing the course material, which provided blinding clarity. I also looked around at all the girls that I thought were cute, and came to the conclusion that to them, I simply didn’t matter. At recess though, I made quite some money, betting that I knew what number the other kid was thinking of. I ended up leaving the school grounds about 5 dollars richer than I had entered them. Since it was warm out today and I lived fairly close to the school I decided to walk home today and buy some cheap sunglasses with some of my newfound money, to hone the skill of more in-depth thought probing. Later, while working outside with my mom, I discovered that If I probed deep enough I could look into the thoughts that they’d had all day, but during and before their last sleep was completely blank, and I found no need to try probing any further.

After about a week though, I found myself faced with a dilemma. How to go about my life without intruding other people’s privacy. I can’t just not look at people, but I thought of one thing that might work. I had to use earplugs or earbuds, because, regardless of whether they were actual noises or not, they sounded like noises so that would work, right? Wrong. I used earplugs for about a day, and saw no change, except for people wondering why I wore earplugs, to which I had no good excuse, so I finally went in to see the doctor, under the pretenses with my family and all others involved that they wouldn’t try to convince me to do anything questionable, like working for the government or weaponizing me and whatnot. The doctor ended up being exactly the wrong place to go. Instead of telling me that there would be a simple medication that might help, and that this was common, I ended up being something far worse. An anomaly. This being said, they put me in a bunch of different machines, I think they did CAT and MRI scans, and couldn’t figure out what was happening. 

So this brings us the prognosis that has me doing what I’m doing right now. I’m going to end up getting kept away, homeschooled to keep me away from others. This will be my last contact with the outside world, with my name most likely redacted from the beginning to prevent you from finding me if you knew me before. This is for the best though, as now I cannot be used by others, and everything will be safer because of it. While I’m stuck away, medical professionals will be working their hardest to get me back to normal, so if I see any of you again, I might let you know who I am.