The Words - An Autobiography

Telepathy

By the end of its second year, Telepathic Collaboration Inc. had a basement full of the brightest young people on the planet and a backyard full of fuel-efficient, hybrid, and alternative fuel cars and bicycles. We couldn't afford to pay them as much as other companies who'd have gladly hired most of them away, but we'd engaged a company to design a generous stock incentive plan. Once an employee was with us a year, we issued them one-hundred-thousand shares of stock, which would vest over four years. This was a tiny fraction of the portions of the company that Bob and I owned, and the stock still wasn't worth a dime, but it sounded like a lot. They were each issued more shares every year on the anniversary of their hire date, which also vested over the same schedule. So, by the end of their second year, they all owned a growing piece of the company.

Far more than any present or future monetary rewards, most were more motivated by hanging out with other smart, cool people, all of them nerds to the rest of the world, and playing with cool, exciting stuff. And they were part of something all of them believed would become something special. They were all excited about our vision of the future. In addition, we fed them. Pizzas were delivered almost hourly, coolers were full of soda and energy drinks, and there were coffee makers capable of preparing any coffee drink they desired. And we eventually went so far as to hire baristas.

There were workers continuously present in the basement, first moving, or removing, walls, then installing bathrooms with showers since many of our young employees rarely left the premises, after which I had no idea what renovations might be going on. I was still away most of the time, so Bob, feeling uncomfortable making such decisions without any oversight, worked everything out with my wife. Who'd just shrugged and given him carte blanche to do whatever he wanted, so long as it wouldn't interfere with naked-hide-and-seek.

Those were happy days. Everyone was engaged and fulfilled, playing with Magick. My wife was happy, working one-hundred-hour weeks, then returning home to play with me and her expanding collection of wigs and things - even though naked-hide-and-seek grew more challenging as brilliant bald-headed kids continued to fill the house.

We'd recently tasked a team of software engineers with piggybacking telepathic texting onto existing internet protocols. Our vision from the beginning was to transmit standard encrypted text messages through the existing channels. We could already generate messages telepathically, as Bob and I had discovered how to do at the university. Now with far more clarity, reliability, and the ability to transmit to our phones, so long as we were sitting in our basement, shielded from external RF interference. Telepathic delivery/reception, even in our controlled environment, was still a work in progress. But we'd come a long way from what Bob and I had accomplished at the university lab where we'd first met.

"I can read your mind," I recalled telling Bob.

"I can read yours too, and I wish you wouldn't think about your wife that way when I'm doing it," had been his response.

"Really?" I'd looked at him, alarmed. Bob wasn't one for practical jokes. So when he pulled one, he'd generally catch me flat. "Hey! Now, who's thinking dirty thoughts about my wife?"

"Sorry, you're right," Bob had apologized. "That was very inappropriate of me." Then his expression grew anxious, and he pleaded, "Please don't tell your wife. I don't want her to think that I think that way about her."

I'd waved off his concern. "My wife likes you. Relax." Then I'd added, "Besides, I don't know many men who don't think of her 'that' way, and I can't blame them. How lucky am I?"

"I know," Bob had answered, clearly not getting the full implication of my permission for him to lust for my wife. He'd continued, "Women usually don't like me. I don't want her to change her mind. I don't want to get frostbite, like Ed."

We'd had a long, hard laugh together remembering Ed's first interaction with my wife, then again, when Bob recalled the first and only time Ed had made a suggestive remark about my wife in my presence. I'd reminded him of her reaction, then added, "Not only does she not like you, but she's also certain you must have a small dick."

The smile had fallen from Ed's face. "Really?" I shrugged and let him think what he would. My wife couldn't have cared less about the size of his dick. It was his brain she thought must have shriveled to the size of a raisin, or maybe he'd been born stupid.

We'd been joking about reading one another's minds. We couldn't and wouldn't have wanted to do that. But we had exchanged most of that conversation, reading messages on our phones and replying without speaking a word.