Rivers of the Mind Episodes 6 and 7 Love Affair and The Visit

Episode 6 (and 7): Love Affair/The Visit

When your feet fall in love with walking, standing still feels like heartbreak. But I'd developed a love affair, one which intervened between myself and my unending sojourn. I couldn't leave Gerry. The old man was too gentle, the thought of abandoning him to this lonely ranch felt wrong. His son—the one who came to visit every weekend—never did much to help his father here, and almost seemed to resent the task of caring for his father. Meanwhile, Gerry had started to see me as a kind of son, and I'd started to see him, almost, like a dad. I had learned, over the last three days, how to stop myself from anticipating his words long enough to have a conversation, and I would sit, and listen to him tell stories about his life. As I did, I could watch the images unfold in his mind as I heard the words and strange hill country idioms he ascribed to things, and I perceived that the conversations aided his memory. Every morning, he'd make breakfast, and we'd tend to the cows. I'd help him with chores—a zenlike task for me: cleaning the mildew off of the shower, folding laundry, and sweeping off the porch. I could I save the outdoor chores for later on in the day when I knew Meagan was driving to work. Her car would barrel down the highway, with the sounds of classical music blaring from the sides, and I would listen in on what ever thought was running through her head for the few seconds I could hear her. Yesterday, she was worrying about her grandmother. Today, she was worrying about her brother. It'd only been three nights that I'd slept in the same bed. My fingernails were trimmed. My beard had been groomed. My hair was clean. I looked in the mirror, and I was startled by how different I still looked from the person I was before.

Meagan dreamed about me every night. But not always in the way that I would have liked. I woke up the night before last inside of a dream where she left all her belongings behind and hitchhiked with me to San Antonio. That was nice, even if she had a fairly unrealistic idea of what it was like, and even if I found myself unable to do anything other than what she imagined me doing in her dream, I could read her thoughts. She thought of it as an escape. Running away. The pressures at home and at work were bearing down on her. She was a twenty one year old woman and her closest friends were already almost done with college. She had a year and half under her belt, she'd gotten straight A's, and felt certain she was capable of more. Her manager treated her, flagrantly, like she was almost less than a full person. Her grandmother was getting worse. Hanging on, but only barely. The next night, she dreamed about me again, only this time, I was a drug dealer, selling heroin to her brother. Her brother worked two jobs. Between the two of them, they were the primary breadwinners for the family, and fought often. She could hardly blame him for his belligerence; he worked at least 60 hours every week, between three jobs, and sometimes went days without sleep. A year ago, he'd started drinking, then smoking pot, and now smoking meth, and Meagan was afraid he'd go further, and start with heroin. It was when she burst down the door, a shotgun in her hands, that I realized that I could, with some effort, control my own body inside of the dream. I broke out of the mold that I'd been placed in within the dream, shattering the skin of my imagined body and stepping out as my inner form, my soul. I held up my hand, pleading for her to stop. Tears streaming down her face, she screamed for me to stay away from her brother, and pulled the trigger. The terror of having killed me quickly woke her up, and I was ripped out of the dream.

I was shaken by it the rest of the day. I woke up feeling deeply heartbroken, and went through my day visibly disturbed. Gerry looked on with concern, but was unsure how to address my sadness. He supposed I wanted to leave. He supposed I'd gotten bored with him, and wanted to move on with my life. Politely, he tried to ask me over dinner if I was planning on hitting the road any time soon. In a couple days, I said. I couldn't stay forever, and he knew that. I wanted to meet his son Mick, though. I told him. He thought I was trying to be kind to him, but I just really wanted to understand Mick. Something about him and his family seemed off from what Gerry had said, thought and dreamed about them. I wanted to be sure that Gerry was in good hands with his son. I would already miss it here. I'd forgotten, for a moment, that all of this, the fragile nature of reality around me, the porous nature of consciousness, the way I felt, all of it was strange. I felt normal, and feared I'd lose that feeling if I left. Cowardly as it was, I now dreaded walking into a strange city, and hearing the thoughts of murderers, rapists, thieves, bankers, prostitutes, and drug addicts all around me, wanting to help them, wanting to save everyone I met from themselves or whatever ailed them, being seen again as an anonymous and homeless alien instead of a human.

I went to sleep that night and found Meagan right away, walking alongside her at work, and observing what she did. She seemed so lonely, her face seemed to be holding back so much. She did her best, I could tell, to do her job perfectly and to help those around her. But customers screamed at her, her manager, who seemed to not have benefited from having his consciousness probed by me, harassed her, and her coworkers seemed distant and uninterested in talking with her. I watched her restock the vitamins, and stop for a second at vitamin B-12, smirking faintly before moving onto the rest of the vitamins. She thought of me for a second. I doubted I was much more than a strange thing that had happened recently, but unconsciously, I could tell she wished she could live like me, I'd become a symbol—her dreams debated back and forth whether it was a life worth choosing, and I was but a fixture in that debate. In a way, that was what she meant to me too. A lifestyle. A state of fixation that I contemplated unendingly. And so I dreamed of her. And she dreamed of me.

I returned to my body when she got home and waited for her to start dreaming. I'd been thinking about it all day, what I'd do when I did. But for a while, I stayed and I floated, and she hadn't thought of me. Saddened for a moment, I wondered if it might be better that way. For her to forget she'd ever seen me, and for me to forget I'd ever seen her. To leave it at that, keep things the way they are, run from it, unattached and untethered. I'd be a homeless guy wandering through Texas hunting gems on acid, and she'd be a stoned Walmart employee working long hours at night and caring for her grandmother by day. Gerry would be an old man alone in his house, staring longingly at his cows munching grass in a sprawling, mushroom filled pasture. For a moment, the nothingness of it had an appeal. To simply let my thoughts stay as thoughts and remain a passive observer to them, doing nothing to help and nothing to hurt anyone. Standing still.

I felt myself drift downwards, into a dream. Meagan. She was stocking the vitamins again, and I was behind her. She gasped when she saw me. I could tell she was thinking about the dream last night, when she'd shot me, and looking through her mind in that moment, I knew that she was ashamed of having thought of me that way. I shook from the image she imagined I looked like, and let it crumble behind me. “Why do you keep dreaming about me?”, I asked. She gulped, wincing, her stomach filling with serotonin and her eyes racing over me. “I wish I would have gotten to talk with you.”, she answered. I shook, unsteady. Suddenly, I could not read her mind—rather, I only felt it against me, warm and shivering—I knew that it was there, but I was deaf to it. “You seemed like you had a story. And when you talked, you sounded younger than you looked. I wanted to talk to you. Know more about you.”

“My name is John.”, I said, gulping. It all felt real, suddenly. Like we were in the real world. I could barely tell I was dreaming, and neither could she. For all intents and purposes, it was reality. I couldn't tell what was happening, but it felt uniquely psychedelic. Everything looked not only real, but hyper real. Detailed, all of the senses felt so entirely normal that I felt completely out of place. “And I'm Meagan.”, she said. “I thought you were one of the nicest people I'd ever met when I heard your mind coming around the corner. And when I saw you, you had really soft eyes. You didn't pity me, or judge me. You just helped me find vitamins, and wondered about where I came from.”

“Where did you find that crystal?”

“The tourmaline? New Hampshire. Last summer. I sell them. Or don't really sell them, I give them to people. Sometimes they give me money. But only sometimes. I never ask for it. They're healing crystals.”

“Do they work?”

“How's yours working?”

She sighed, looking off. “Well I feel a little braver.”

“Then I guess they do.”

“But it's just a placebo effect, right?”

“Sometimes that's all it takes.”

“Don't you feel bad, convincing people they're magic?”

I shook my head, having wondered about it myself. “They need hope, so I give it to them. They have everything inside themselves they need to heal themselves, they just need hope. Whether that's in a healing crystal, or a friend or—that old lady who came in earlier tonight. You helped her lift her bags into her cart, even though she was rude to you. I saw her last time, when I was walking in. I know her, a little bit, and I could tell when I was watching her that she felt like you were a younger version of herself, so she acted rude, but you helped her with her bags, and acted so sweet to her, I knew it made her day just a little bit better. That's hope. It's not worthless. Even if they're just crystals, the placebo is magic enough.”

She thought about it for a moment. “But what does that change? I can have all the hope in the world, but it doesn't make a difference. What if I had a terminal disease? Or cancer? What good does it do for me to hope I get better?”

“Your grandmother's neurologist.”

“What about her?”

“She's kind of mean. But she's competent.”

“Yeah.”

“And you know your grandmother doesn't like her, but you both know she knows what she's doing. She's helping her get better, as best as she can. So what good would it do, anyway, for her to try to be less of a bit---less of a negative person.”, she turned her head, understanding what I was saying, “You'll be better at it than she is. Because you're kind. And strong enough, and good enough, to help people when they need you. You know how to talk your mom out of a panic attack, help your brother get out of bed in the morning, and keep your grandma's spirit fighting. That's what good it does.”

“I just feel like I'm gonna explode.”, she said. She clutched her forehead, and I leaned into embrace her. I didn't know what to say. The two of us just hugged each other, for a little bit. When I pulled away she was crying.

“You said you can read minds.”, she said, “Can you read mine?”

“Not right now.”

“No, I mean, can you tell I'm dreaming?”

I almost forgot where we were, that she was a stranger, and we were only, for a time, simply inhabiting the same dream. I winced. “Yes. I can. I guess I must be--”, I almost said inside you, before I stopped myself, “--reading your mind right now. I'm asleep too, though, in real life.”

“What did you do to my manager?”

“It was an accident. I took acid out in this field and I guess that my consciousness got sucked into a hole in the universe. I was trying to come down from the trip, and when he came up to me and tried to take my crystals, I guess I accidentally sucked his soul into my mind, and then he sucked mine into his and--” She laughed. “What?”, I asked. “He sucked yours into his?”, she cackled, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I need to grow up.” I smiled with her. I forgot what it felt like to hear a joke that wasn't about ranching, and that I didn't know the punchline to beforehand after watching my conversation partner carefully trying to remember it for fifteen minutes. “So you took LSD, and now you've got superpowers.”

“That's exactly what happened.”

Looking at me strangely, she nodded. A wave of panic came over me. My stomach sank, and I felt myself drawing inward. The walls took on an austere grey, and vitamins shook, slipping off their shelves one by one. I shut my eyes, wanting to pull away from her dream, but unable to. The shelves in the pharmacy fell over, splitting apart from us. She looked different—her eyes melted away, and I heard the laughs of someone else tearing apart the air between us. She ran up to me, and grabbed me. The husks of the spoiled dream lapsed away, and we found ourselves in an astral world. She gazed upon it with awe—to her, it must have felt like we were tripping on DMT—for all intents and purposes, I supposed we were, but as one. Faint purple lines of energy swirled around us. Our bodies were not bodies, but energies. We were conscious of each other as one, without the tethers of vision, like two friends walking down a street in a pair of rubber masks, hearing each others voices but unable to see the other. In that moment, I felt myself become completely known by her, and she became known by me, both of us at once unable to speak, only to fire a thousand thoughts and ideas and questions and replies between each other all at once, in what felt like a hurricane.

We rose upwards, and upwards, until we came out over the ocean, seeing each other rise into a starlit sky. She was holding on to me as we did, looking down at the water underneath us, mystified, her mouth open in awe. The dream had split apart and we were standing there above it. Another dimension. An ocean in the sky. We looked down upon it with awe. “This can't be real.”, she said, overwhelmed by how vivid and psychedelic her dream had become. “That's what I said.”, I gulped. She shut her eyes, feeling that the REM sleep was beginning to dissipate. “If it is, if you can really hear me somehow, and this is all real, find me when you wake up. Tell me...tell me...” I nodded, having had the same idea, “You'll drive by me when you leave to visit your grandma in the hospital. I'm in house number 5400. The old ranch. I'll be standing out front. Stop for a moment, and I'll say something to you.” She started to wake up, although her body remained paralyzed. The waters of the ocean flooded into her room. She felt like she was drowning, and desperately tried to make her limbs move so she could escape. I stood next to her bed, and wished I could help before I, and the hallucinogenic seawater, slowly faded away.

When I woke up that morning, I rolled out of bed and tried to lock the memory in my mind...when she drives by, she'll stop. Say something to her. Even if only with your mind. Try to wave, so she knows she's not crazy. I ran over it again and again in my head, as I paged through the millions and millions of ways it could go wrong, all at once, worrying up a frenzy. I was shaking. I could barely put on my pants or remember what I had to do. The order I had to do it in. I felt tensely unready to see her, and desperate to keep my thoughts on balance. I walked, accidentally, into the door, and fell almost flat on my back. My vision dizzy for a moment, I layed there on the ground for a time, staring at the ceiling and trying to prepare myself for the coming encounter. I controlled my breath, gently, feeling my heart pound heavily in my ears, almost making me imagine there was someone stomping on the roof. I got up, my limbs feeling clumsy and wirey, and stumbled towards the door again, before clutching the handle, and opening it. A bright red SUV waited out front, a cloud of dust behind it. A stern looking woman sat in the passenger seat, a pair of buglike sunglasses on her head and a white sunhat covering up her straightened blond hair. She got out, wearing a nice pair of high heels, a clean black skirt and a white tank top. From the other side, Mick, a bald, authoritarian looking man with small eyes and a nice collared shirt. The two of them got out as one, and Mick finished a text while his wife opened the backseat to help their youngest daughter out of the car. Around the wife's head, I could see a pale grey aura, tinged with what looked like rust along the edges. Mick, meanwhile, had no aura. No color. His face was contorted in a firm and impassive shape when people weren't looking, before shifting into a smile whenever someone did.

Mick saw me after looking up from his phone. He lifted his head and almost sniffed the air like a lion. I was unnerved by him. On edge, I walked into the kitchen, where Gerry had cooked up extra helpings of steak for his son and his kids. “Mick's coming today.”, Gerry told me, not having noticed his car pull up. He was hoping that Mick had remembered to buy him something good for his heart, and that Mick's disrespectful son Gerald Jr. hadn't brought his stupid iPad. He brought it. His eyes were glued to it as he exited the vehicle. Mick pulled two big handfuls of groceries from the back of the car, and lurched forward, his eyes sweeping across the family, the car, the house, his father, with a penetrating hostility. I inched closer to him, hearing his thoughts creep towards me. He saw me, and was immediately suspicious. I looked like I was on coke, he tried to comprehend what I was doing here. Entering the house, and setting the groceries down on the kitchen table, Mick glared at me, saying with fake ambivalence, “Howdy dad! Who's your friend?”

“This is John.”, Gerry said, mixing around the eggs with a spatula, “He's just been staying over for a couple nights.”

The wife, who's name was Cassandra May Louis Parker, shepherded in her children, while glaring at me with suspicion. I looked like a drug addict. She imagined me as some kind of degenerate, her mind studying me with a dark and piercing fear. Mick came towards me, looking me over, recognizing that I was wearing his dad's clothes, which didn't fit quite right, and catching the sight of my eyes, dilated and unsteady. He extended a hand. I looked down at the strange, bulbous appendage. Somehow, Mick's mind, when I tried to understand it, was blank. His impressions were empty. I gazed into him, feeling my consciousness press up against his. He felt almost annoyed, but that was it. I backed away, shaking. He wondered if I was mentally ill. I cautiously grabbed his hand, and shook it slowly, making eye contact. Cassandra raised her eyebrows in silent condescension. Poor people, drug users, hippies, criminals, all of them deserved whatever punishment they got in life. If ever I had suffered, she was sure I'd deserved it. She and Mick had money. They had it because they were good people. She imagined the devil was working in my life, and prayed silently that I did not attack or corrupt her children. “My name is John”, I said, shaking, “I—I--”, I tried to think of a normal person, so that I could act like one, “How do you do, Mick?” Startled since he hadn't told me his name yet, Mick supposed his dad must have warned me he was coming over. “I'm alright, Johnny. I'm alright.” I nodded, quickly, and brushed by him to shake Cassandra's hand. She recoiled in disgust, but politely accepted, and shared a knowing look with her husband. “Cassandra. Gerry has told me about you, so I know your name. I'm--”,

I looked into her terrified, disgusted eyes and for a moment peered into her inner world. Cassandra didn't really care for Mick. She didn't really care for men, actually, and she'd hated herself for it. She'd gone to bible studies, and youth groups, and women's retreats trying to cure herself of it, she'd married and had children to try to get rid of her sinful ideas, but every so often, since she was a teenager, she'd find herself fantasizing about women. Back then, she'd cut herself for it, but she'd gone to college, she'd married Mick, and since then she'd stopped. It was hard to surpress it. Terrifically hard to rationalize. It filled her psyche with a longing tension. Beneath a hateful and upper-middle class exterior rested a raging, and wounded subconscious. Neither Mick, nor anyone else in her life, knew the person that was underneath that exterior, and even she was barely aware of it. It only surfaced from time to time. Gavin's coming out to his father filled her with such rage, but only to conceal her deep-seated jealousy, and her fear that somehow, Mick had the same genes, and that they'd pass them onto their children. Accordingly, her daughter was dressed in exceedingly effeminate clothes and encouraged to spurn anything masculine, and her boys were dressed the same, taught to deny any trace of femininity. Both were reminded, really pleaded with, to not be gay.

Mick didn't care about any of that. He thought church was stupid, and that the pastor was an annoying, pretentious little beta, who he'd like to see drown in a baptismal font filled with his own excrement. He was certain that women were little more intelligent than baboons, and openly did not believe they deserved respect unless it could get him what he wanted. So he respected his wife. He thought his wife was hot, and had married her because she was compliant, and fucked him whenever he wanted. He had an intern at his office, and had had sex with her at least twice a week, too. Both of them could be easily strung along with silly, bullshit compliments. Mick tried to fuck most women, if only because he could, and if Cassandra ever found out, he'd tell her it was because she'd gotten fat since the baby, something he'd actually expected to be able to use an excuse to divorce her after the second kid, to no avail. It wouldn't hold weight, because Cassandra still looked good enough to fuck when he needed it. Mick liked working at the bank, because he made a lot of money, and he could destroy people whenever he wanted. Once, he passed by a homeless person in San Antonio—bored, Mick made them sing and dance for a fifty dollar bill. Another time, he'd found out that a driver who cut him off in traffic had an account with his bank, and froze his credit cards. He was hoping his father would die soon, so he could sell the property, but in the meantime was hoping to have him stuck in a nursing home. Mick liked two things: sex, and money. He couldn't give two shits about anything else.

Awkwardly, I let go of Cassandra's hand, having held onto it for upwards of thirty seconds. Everyone in the room was staring at me, except for Gerry, who smirked as he realized I was reading everyone's minds. He hoped I could hypnotize the kids to get off that stupid little iPad, and maybe take an interest in the cows. When Gerry looked at Cassandra, she reminded him of his sunday school teacher: grim, serious, and prissy. She didn't seem like the type of girl he'd hoped Mick would marry. Meanwhile, he wasn't sure what had happened with Mick. Mick always seemed a little rowdy when he was a young boy, like the kind of boy who'd want to grow up to be a cowboy. Instead, he'd gone off to college and become a banker. Now, it was difficult to talk to his son. He almost didn't want listen to his dad. Gerry felt neglected by Mick, suspicious that he took a cut from his social security check, and annoyed that Mick never bought him the food he asked for. Mick was thinking that I wanted to fuck his wife, and steal from his dad. Almost all the possessions in the house were to be split between him and Dan. Mick knew there were some valuable antiques here, and didn't want me to take them before he could.

Mick helped Gerry spread out the table and set it for the kids, while Cassandra helped in the kitchen. I gave her the creeps. Stuck by the counter and unsure of what I could do to help, I stood still. I tried to avoid Mick's head. His thoughts disturbed me, his utter lack of emotion or redemption made me feel terribly afraid for Gerry and everyone around him. Cassandra didn't know. She thought Mick was a perfect husband, and hated herself for not being satisfied with him. She hadn't enjoyed any of the time they spent with each other. She tried as hard as she could to be a good woman, but she felt like she couldn't. She tried to cook and clean and raise her kids right, but she knew deep in her heart that she was corrupted. Our consciousnesses met, and I could feel the sadness and anger pressing up against my own intrusive mind. I turned around, seemingly to look at the stove, but really to look at her. She froze, dissociating momentarily from what she was doing. I studied the contents of her mind, preparing to try in some way to help her resolve the anger she had driven against herself, to possibly let her come to peace with who she was. But it was all so precarious—I remembered the police officer—trying to only turn a memory into a dream released a chemical cocktail which put him in a strange, psychedelic state—who knew what it would mean for me to toy with so restless and complicated a system? And in front of her family? With all of these people watching, I felt certain that the wrong move could be disastrous. I withdrew.

Cassandra, feeling herself regain control over her body, cringed in discomfort. The momentary dissociation she'd felt seemed almost demonic. Perhaps her sinful mind had cleared the way for whatever satanic power I had to take hold over her. She set the spatula down, and, panicking, leaned back against the counter, putting her hand over her forehead. “Are you okay, baby?”, Mick asked with forced sympathy. “I--”, she didn't want to say, looking back at me. My terrifying, piercing grey eyes looked like big flying saucers, dilated like some kind of drug addict—definitely mentally ill. Even if I'd cleaned up, she could tell I was homeless, she thought. I was taking advantage of this old man. Looking to rob him. Maybe kill him. And I was looking at her with such interest she worried I'd attack her, in some way. Mick could tell she was afraid, but was preoccupied with extending the table. He figured if I tried something, he'd punch me in the face. He was, as was Cassandra, already considering calling the police. I reached out to her mind again, and saw it flurrying in a state of anxiety, rushing back and forth in a mess of unconscious conflict. She could feel our consciousnesses meet, and it created even more terror in her heart. I latched onto the emotion, the anxiety, and could feel an intuitive kind of empathy overtake me. I mimicked her, internally, and I could feel what she was going through. Slowly, I tried to talk myself down, and in doing so, clear both of our minds, now that they faced cognate fears. She shut her eyes, and focused only on the shapes in front of her—I softly directed any thoughts, or thinking out of her brain—making it clear that both of us would be only present in the exact moment. Her anxiety began to subside—although I did not let go, as I knew that the specific method of coping I was trying to lead her through was difficult to perfect. Feeling her relax somewhat, I planted a suggestion in her mind. “Have compassion.”, I said, pulling on a bible verse she only barely remembered with the same basic message—I implied, as I said that, a love for herself, and a love for others. A wash of peace came over her. I withdrew, and watched her calmly open her eyes. Paranoid, I turned away quickly.

“Where are you from, John?”, she asked, taking a cue from the idea of compassion. “I'm from North Dakota.”, I told her.

“And what do you do?”

Mick glared with hostility at the two of us, uncertain of why his wife was talking to me all of the sudden. “I collect healing crystals.”, I told her. Gerry looked up, offering a translation, “John's a traveling rockhound, I guess you could say.”

“So I don't suppose you're Christian?”, she gulped—her notion of compassion, by necessity, required she ask. Gerry cut her off before I could reply. “He was sleeping outside in the thicket, and I heard the cows getting a little noisy, so I went out, and there he was. Nearly shot the poor fella's head clean off. Nice boy, though. Wouldn't even hurt a fly. Pretty smart too.”, Gerry wanted to tell them that I was psychic, but wisely decided not to. “I don't really know, to answer your question.”, I said, looking back at Cassandra. She frowned, sighing, and trying to imagine how she could minister to me. “How long have you been homeless?”, she asked. “Since July 2014, or so.”, I said. “That whole time, just selling crystals?”, asked Mick, dubious. He didn't think I could have made it only selling crystals on the road, and tried to figure out what kind of drugs I could sell, before he put two and two together and figured I was probably there for the mushrooms. He'd taken them when he was a kid, but found them boring. But he sold a few of them to some of his classmates who were going to a party. “No. Well, I give them to people. They pay me if they want to.” Mick raised his eyebrows at his wife, who seemed irritated with him being rude. She was trying to be compassionate. “What'd you do before that?”, she asked. “I worked at an oil field. I was a geologist.” Mick scoffed, cognizant of the pay I'd have to have left behind to come all the way here, and tried to challenge what he saw as an obvious lie. “Oh yeah? That's a pretty nice job to give up for selling healing crystals.”

“I didn't believe in it. Not when I got up close. I felt kind of disgusted with myself, you know?”

I knew he didn't know what that felt like, since I could read his mind. He understood only winning, or losing. All came to be defined as progress between one of these two poles. “But I bet the money was pretty nice.”

“77,000 dollars a year, plus benefits.”, I told him.

“You worked up in that, you probably wouldn't be out here, sleeping in the bushes out in the middle of nowhere.”

“I like this better.”

He rolled his eyes.

After we had eaten breakfast, Mick had devised a plot to get me out of his dad's house. He casually suggested to his grandfather that he put on a movie with the kids, and Cassandra agreed, out of obligation. Meanwhile, we'd go out on a walk, and he'd show me around. As I listened to him formulate the plan, I made myself ready, eager for the chance to be alone with Mick. I was fully rested, and beyond that, I'd just eaten. The anger I felt bubbling up for Mick was nearly overwhelming, making the walls melt and the dancing shadows on the floor take the form of knife fights and wrestling matches. He was a sadistic and almost unfeeling human being. I watched his eyes with disgust. Mick was certain he knew what I wanted, certain that he could talk me into leaving. I spent the time at breakfast, in between moments where I was expected to speak, mapping out his mind, finding his insecurities and weaknesses. He patted me on the back as we left the house, and I looked, knowingly at Gerry. But not even Gerry understood what I was truly capable of.

“Look”, Mick said as soon as we were about a quarter mile from the house, “I see through your whole deal here.”, he told me, “You and I both know you don't know two shits about geology, and I'm sure whatever your on, you aren't paying for it with the money from your healing crystals, hmm? I'm sure its expensive. You saw this big old field, with all these nice mushrooms, and you decided you could make a few bucks selling them off, am I right?”

“No, you're not.”, I said, pausing to stare him the eyes. My power welling up, I reached towards his consciousness. He looked at me with confusion, and moderate annoyance. “Come on, buddy. How much money will it take to get you out of here? 500, 1000, 2000 dollars? What'll it be?” I pressed further and further against his skull with my consciousness, feeling it spill over the edges of his mind. I could see in, but not enter. “I don't want any money.”, I said. His face seemed to gain size, and loom over me, as he laughed. “Of course you want money.”, the sky turned black, as his voice seemed to come at me from all sides. The world in which I found myself had a bleak, glowing field, with simplified red images of the built structures around us. I jumped backwards, pulling myself away. “Come on. 5000, 10000 dollars? Think of how much coke you could buy with that, hmm? You could probably get a motel room and a couple hookers. Maybe a vacation to the Bahamas.” I felt myself becoming paralyzed, and shrink down. He towered over me, looking like a giant statue of a man, his eyes glowing red. I couldn't speak. “Okay. 20,000. How about that?” I drew within myself, feeling myself drop into level upon level of reality. Somehow, I'd entered his brain without realizing it, and now, I was trapped, unable to speak.

CommentaryI took a suggestion from Sophie and cut this episode in half, but originally, this was all one episode, just called Love Affair. The simplified landscape that John describes reflects the way that Mick understands the world--he imagines in a very sweeping and monochromatic way--the bright red barn and house are all red because they are significant assets that are being threatened. Everything else is either black or white.

Streaming links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQSR2TSff-o and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IEyCIGxpfU
https://riversofthemind.libsyn.com/love-affair and https://riversofthemind.libsyn.com/the-visit
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/rivers-of-the-mind/id1278391177
https://play.google.com/music/m/I5obttfukzok6ggklvb5umo2mgq?t=Rivers_of_the_Mind

All episodes by Timmy Vilgiate. No drugs harmed in the making of this podcast. Nothing in this is real. Nothing at all is real. Everything is a lie.