Disturbed Lincoln

6

     Ah, Sunday, the Lord's day. I spend it sitting on the couch and watching television; mindlessly changing channels until something piques my interest. Usually, nothing ever does, and it ends with me having wasted an hour or two. My phone dings and I pick it up. I swear to God, if he asks me to touch some dumb object, I'm going to lose my mind. After last night, I don't know what to think. Stella had a sister who was kidnapped? I don't know her well enough to assume it's a prank, but it just feels too unreal. I just met the girl, why does she have to pour her misery onto me? Even still, I think it's so rude for her to keep asking me these favors, let alone come to my house without letting me know first—(at the least)! I need to make a promise to myself right now that no matter what this text from Ckyde says, I'm not "fortune telling" anymore. That's final.

     We both were sitting at the park, on a bench, and he pulled from his pocket a small list of colleges. "Which ones will accept me, Lincoln?!" I told myself I wouldn't let this happen, I know, but he guilt-tripped me. Not only that, he claimed I looked at Rusty's and Stella's and it was unfair that I left him out. (Sound familiar?) I did have a question I could ask him, specifically about what happened last night, so I'm not getting something out of the meeting. I tore the list from his hand, irritated, and read over it. Of the ten or twelve college names, four of them formed a bright red check mark beside them. Another hallucination, of course. I looked up at Clyde with no excitement or interest left in my body. He, however, was literally on the edge of his seat with a bright smile on his face. "Stillwater, Starboard, Azitec, and Monolith. Now can we talk?"

     He took back the paper and hugged it. "Thank you so much! Anyway, what did you want to talk about?" I didn't know where to begin, so I went from the start. "Stella came to my house—uninvited, no thanks to you—and brought me an earring to... Did you know Stella's sister was kidnapped?" Clyde looked down wanly and sighed. "Yes, I know. You haven't sat with me at Lunch for so long that you kind of fell out of the loop with the whole two new friends thing. She was actually a very positive person beforehand, but after her sister got taken she became a little more bitter and sarcastic. I think it's her way of 'dealing with it,' y'know? I told her to go to your house alone because, well, you might not agree, but I think you're a really empathetic person. You always say you're suffering so you can understand what it's like for others. I apologize for sending her there without telling you first, but if I told you, I knew you'd fight it anyway. I hope you'll forgive me."

     "Clyde, you're giving her false hope. Everybody I'm with now is handing me crap that I don't want so that I can cast magic spells. If she's that upset, she needs support, not a pseudo-medium. I barely know her! I don't have the capacity to deal with random people's problems!" Clyde looks to the sky and shrugs. "You're pretty good at it. You always complained about your life being monotonous and boring. Now you have a purpose and you're pushing it away. Why not pursue it?"

"Clyde, it's lying to people."

"It's helping them put their mind at ease! You guessed those cards, told Rusty when his grandma will pass, and saw Stella's sister's captor!"

"I did not see her captor, I saw a tall inhuman creature."

"Doesn't matter. It's what your mind saw so it has to mean something!"

"Hallucinations and delusions aren't real."

"Did you ever see a doctor?"

"No."

"Then how do you know they're hallucinations?"

"I can add one and one, that's how I know. It's common sense. I see things that don't exist."

"But maybe they do!"

"Clyde. I'm done with this. Stop bringing it up."

     He shot a disappointed look at me. He thinks too much of me. Empathetic? Psychic? What will he call me next, the president? An angel? God? I'm starting to think Clyde is more mentally unwell than I am! He's looking up at the sky still, so I decide to give into nature and try to relax amidst the beauty of February. Trying to relax never goes well for me, and soon I found out this was no exception. The world turned red and the trees grew taller and impossibly dark. It was as if the branches coiled into long black vines that branched over top of me, encasing me in a wooden vascular system, which became thornier the more I panicked. My breathing was getting out of control as my mind searched for answers. The end of the world, I saw it, and now it's here. The sky rained with aggressive meteors and flaming stars rained down, cutting the ground with their sharp edges. The sky is falling, the sky is falling. Up from the ground sprouts a monstrous root, and I get up to run but it grabs me tightly. I fall to the ground, attempting to crawl backward, but persistently getting dragged forward down into an expanding hole, where I would fall into a dirt abyss, and get buried by the impending flood that would wash this whole canvas dry.

"LINCOLN!"

"H-huh?"

     The all-too-familiar scene plays out once again. I, lying on the ground with humiliation, struggled to breathe while being looked down at. I thought the world was going to burn away, but here it stays. "You need to see a doctor," he tells me. "I think you're right." My mother picked us both up and took Clyde home first, then brought me back to the house. "Mom, can I see my doctor?" Her next words filled me with anger, sadness, and a sense of aloneness. I wanted to burst out crying.

"What for?"