A Normie's Guide To Mind-Reading | ONC 2023

Six ∆ Don't Forget About Subtext

"Bioluminescence has occurred... we have Drive by Incubus," Pai says, soft static trailing his voice.

"Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear..." The song rolls on as I open my eyes, now groggily aware of the leather beneath me. It's a brown sofa. So this isn't home. Bandages wrap my topless body; my eyes hurt; my bloodied shirt strewn on a mahogany coffee table. That wasn't a dream.

I think I should stop reading altogether. Too many literature-related shit happening out of the blue. If I could distance myself from literature! Though, where am I? It's not a kidnapping, for sure. This is too comfortable. The apartment is cramped full of Hello Kitty merchandise. At a rustic dining table, an old woman in a floral dress sits with her back facing me, her head on the table. The radio beside her, of course, is the source of Pai's voice.

This better not be a Misery parallel. I am the son, not the famous man himself. I am famous, now that I think about it. No, it's because I stopped walking that shit happened. I should've listened to Caleb.

"Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there, I'll be there," the woman sings along with a raspy and shaky voice.

"S-Sorry for the trouble," I say as I sit up. It's best to be polite.

She spins her head towards me. She looks normal. Well, the girl seemed normal at first. So did her bike. This old woman couldn't possibly hurt me now, right?

"You woke up. You're Siti's friend," she mumbles. "I saw you lying down in the park."

"You didn't pick the maggots off, did you?" I ask with a little mirth.

She shakes her head. "I ate them."

A maggot wriggles out of her left eye. She bats her left eyelid. The maggot convulses for a while before going limp, then dropping onto the table soundlessly. She shoves it into her mouth, swallows and burps.

"That was a naughty one." Her glassy eyes twinkle. "I'm not going to hurt you, sweet. I'm not like the other mind-readers. Come, sit beside me."

It's more strategic to be meek so I take a seat on the wooden chair beside her, the legs creaking under my weight.

"Why did you help me?"

The old woman licks her fingers and sniffs them. "You must've realised it by now."

Bile rises up my throat and, pressing my tongue against my hard palate, I resist the urge to puke.

"The weather's nice, huh?" I train my legs to the window and she, too, stares at the tinted glass, the billowing curtains, the corridor, a potted spider plant on the parapet, a clothes peg clipping a teabag to the grille. The curtains stick to the grille when she slides the window shut. The main door clicks shut.

"It's too windy, sweet. This is better," she says, raising the volume of the radio to the max, amplifying Pai's voice as he interviews one Mr. Li Shen on his corporation's success story. Li Zhi's father.

She taps the table. "You like Hello Kitty? I queued for them at McDonald's back in 2000."

I scratch my neck. Did she mean queued or killed? No, I cannot let her get into my head. "I like cats."

"Siti has one. Very cute."

"Is she home?"

"Not yet."

"I should wait for her outside."

"Am I a bad host?"

I frown. She's playing up the innocent act. Does she think I have not spotted the handle of a knife sticking out from behind a Hello Kitty portrait above the television?