The Power of Thought

Chapter 1

    The homeless stare as she walks down the street alone at night. You see a few coins turning in their hands, their minds stuck on what they won't eat tonight, not being able to differentiate between the future and now. They don't ask her for money, but she knows their eyes are going up and down her body, spotting something worth more than money, something they knew slipped from their hands once before.
    She shivered at the cold bite of the air around her. Pulling her jacket tighter over her chest and wrapping her arms in front of her, she looked down at the sidewalk, focusing on the rhythm her feet made on the sidewalk.
    The slow pace helped her mind stay in the moment and not stray away with the constant and overwhelming stream of ideas that entered her mind without permission.
Left.
    They were probably just lonely and needed someone to look at. She knew that look well. She was single for most of middle school, and around the time she got to high school she met several boys that made her once again believe in the God that her parents shoved down her throat.
Right.
    They continued to stare even when her eyes met theirs. Their unmoving eyes watched her like the creepy dolls at the toy store your little brother forced you to take him to.
Left.
    Like a poisonous fog, their thoughts finally enveloped her mind. They always came from a place she couldn't look at, inducing a sort of paranoia that forces her to look down. If she couldn't see where the thoughts came from, she preferred not to look. She never understood why she had to listen to others all the time. She knew what they were thinking. Their thoughts were hers for a moment.
    Images ran past her vision like a movie that gave her a headache when she stared for too long. Stress was usually the cause of these psychic moments. Pent up emotion threw her system into a whirlwind of uncertainty. The only time she found relief from these episodes was when she wrote her thoughts down. For the time being, though, she was hit with the thoughts of others.
    She forced tears back. They were thinking about how lonely they were. They would do anything for someone to look their way. One of them on the other side of the street faked a smile for all those who passed him. He looked like her boyfriend strangely enough, but he wasn't white and instead had a darker complexion like the girl. Holding no sign or coins, the boy gripped his hands tightly inside the pocket of his hoodie, giving him the only sense of control he could find. The boy wondered if the mothers who passed him would have kept him even if he was the product of adultery, much less a sinful homosexual that had no place in the house of God they loved to visit every Sunday.
    Sadness welled up inside him and threatened to make him cry.
    Having to look away before his thoughts took him to the dark place, he noticed a girl across the street. She held her arms tight around her chest just like he held his hands together in his pocket. He couldn't see her face because his eyesight blurred whenever he tried to get a closer look. Maybe he was too hungry or sleep-deprived to focus his sight well enough, but all he could see was her black hair and an unfocused, featureless face underneath. He looked away from her and saw the other men staring at her.
    He knew they were undressing the girl across the street with their eyes. He hadn't even thought about all that before. He wasn't interested in girls. He began to feel bad for her, but at the same time a shameful desire for attention made him jealous of the girl. He couldn't force them to look away so he just went down the closest alleyway to try and put it out of his mind.
    Your own thoughts about this girl walking alone at night begin to drift into the scene. Who is she you ask? How does she know what others are thinking? The thoughts begin to grow exponentially as more facets of their perspectives become known to her. The girl finally decided enough was enough. She began to force everything out of her mind except her own thoughts, and she made her way home.
I know where I'm going, and I also know where I want to go. They are one and the same. Home. Where no one's uninvited thoughts intrude my mind.
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