Puppeteer

Chapter 1

My mother thinks that I'm reincarnated; that I have some sort of connection with God where He tells me things that He would otherwise keep from people. I don't think it's that complicated. It's that I just have more control. I'm coordinated.

One time when I was about four years of age, I was crying really hard. We're talking screaming, snot dripping from my nostrils, drool cascading out of my mouth. I had just found out that my mom would be going on a business trip for a week. That was the longest I had ever been away from her. My parents were sitting in front of me, with faces of regret even thought they knew exactly what my reaction would've been.

My dad finally said "Ashling, baby we-" (Pause for screaming)
"Stop it. It's okay."

I stopped crying. It wasn't a slow stop where the kid finally swallows and then does that weird hiccuping crap and the lungs gasp for air. I stopped right then and there, like I had been faking the whole time. My parents just stared at me like I had grown a third arm. It kinda set my mom into a spiritual panic. She was always on the edge and this, I guessed, pushed her a bit. 

My mom was born and raised in Ireland, so she's totally Catholic and when I stopped myself from crying, she bought all of these books about reincarnation and psychology. She thinks my name put a blessing of some sort on me. My name is Ashling, by the way. Ashling Cliona McGinn; Loosley translating to Shapley Dreamer. The McGinn comes obviously from my dad, who is Irish. But he's like a cheap knock-off Irish-American that just uses his ethnicity as an excuse to be pale.

My parents' suspicion began to grow when they found out I could lucid dream. I've always been able to control my dreams like I could with my emotions. As a toddler, I used to tell my dad about how I escaped nightmares. I happened all the time. It gave me this confidence and belief that I was stronger than other people. I was better than everyone else. I was basically perfect. And it was perfection that was going to get me into a good college and help me become a psychologist, but I watched that whither away when I was 15.

I was at the pediatrician's for a physical and I'm not the kind of person who can just deal with physicals. I only barely tolerated them because every time I went to one the doctor said I was in "perfect condition". Surprise, surprise. I get super nervous when people are touching me and everything and every year the same nurse had to help me sit still. That nurse eventually retired after my fourteenth physical and on my fifteenth I asked if she could come in.

"No, we cannot bring her out of retirement for you. You are going to sit still. I know what you are capable of, Ashling so just calm yourself."

The doctor was kind of a diva. And I would calm myself except every time I did, I got distracted and the fear just rushed back to me.

"Okay now breath in." The doctor placed the cold metal of her stethoscope to my back. "Slowly breathe out. Okay keep doing that sweetie"

I guess I stopped breathing as she wished me to, but she looked at me like I told an offensive joke and said "Ashling, please listen to me."

"I am." I snapped back.

"Then why did you basically stop breathing?" Okay, I'm not a doctor or anything, but I'm pretty sure you have to have even the slightest people skills to get your MD.

I realized that I was breathing normally instead of deeply and slowly.
"I f-forgot."

Nurse McPleasant stared at me once again. "You forgot? Don't forget."

"I won't forget."

When that whole fiasco was over, my eyes needed to be checked. One would think that sounds simple enough.