Sorry, Fear Me #2

i lie back on the sofa in the psychiatrist's office in glenville, nevada, the dried tears making patterns on my cheeks. the psychiatrist looked up from her legal pad of paper and glanced back down upon it. she arched her eyebrow and rummaged some papers on her desk. i left to get a drink of water and to console my usually calm self. walking back into the psychiatrist's office, i saw the doctor tracing some highlighted phrases from the file that chronicled the past twenty years of my life, ever since i could escape from the town where i lost control.

i studied the psychiatrist to whom i had been seeing for the past four years. i was relieved to find a psychiatrist who didn't think i was *entirely* out of my mind. she looked up from her papers and said, "i have something immense to tell you and i don't kno how willing you'll be to accept it. look here," she said, pointing to a print-out of a conversation about my high school life. My rendition of conversations to Phoebe, Karen and Jasmine. Jasmine.

"yes...they depict my inane idea that my own subconcious makes everything up. i've overcome that, doc." i said, defensively.

"well...you were partially right," she said, to my shock. "your individual subconcious does make up a lot, but not everything. not the basic premises. it obeys the rules. there are...certain peoples who are...chosen. these peoples are chosen to help enforce these rules and give guidance to some. i am one of those people, you are not making me up, altho since you felt the need to purge these feeling of guilt and despair in the outlet of a psychiatrist, that's what i have become in your world.

"i am here to help you. i am here to help you because you are also one of the chosen few, proven so because of your obvious genius to recognize such a situation and hypothesize about it without the concious knowledge. you are like me, chosen by the planets to have the ability to step out of your own...relm, as we like to say, into someone else's. to enter their world as created by their subconcious. it's quite an honor, really, to be able to give someone hope and to take a glimpse into someone else's mind. my mission to come here was two-sided, as i have to first help you to a stable mind and then inform and transport you. and now we must go."

it all confused me, yet it made perfect sense. i thought back to that time in high school where i first let the possibility of my subconcious creating my world roam in my mind. that was a sad time, then. that was the year i had killed jasmine, my dear friend. that was when everything changed.

i looked up & saw my psychiatrist standing at the door. or, my non-psychiatrist, i should say. i mutely followed her outside and sat in the front passenger seat of her grey honda civic. as we were driving down the freeway to god knows where, she began speaking again.

"i realize that this...incident with your friend, jasmine, in high school has scarred you. that was our doing, our fault. that's why we're giving you this opportunity."

" 'our' fault? what opportunity?" i asked, mildly confused as i observed a sign which read 'god-knows-where, 1 1/2 miles'

"yes. you see...well, you know how when u described killing jasmine you said you felt possessed? well, in a manner of speaking, you were." she paused as i whipped towards her angrily. "you see," she continued, "we needed to know if you could handle your power. so we gave you a little test."

"what?! killing jasmine was a TEST?" i cried, "what kind of a sick mind do you people have?"

"calm down. you didn't really kill jasmine, in her subconcious, you merely killed her evil twin, Penelope."

i paused in silence for a moment. "wait a minute...how come in her subconcious, i killed someone? i mean, she might not even have a sara in her subconcious."

the non-doctor smiled. "great question. killing jasmine, in so many words, wasn't your test, it was merely a byproduct that was created from untimely anger and a deadline for your test. i understand that you have a penchance for procrastinating until the last moment. your test was to communicate with the subconcious of another person, which you passed with flying colors. the problem was, you being such close friends with those mortals, created...a mirror effect. jasmine's subconcious, unable to cope with being killed, created a previously unknown identical twin, penelope, as the stand in for the murder. the mirror effect comes from jasmine's subconcious thoughts being reflected onto phoebe and karen, so that they had a penelope killed, also. jasmine was the one who was reflected the most since she was the intended recipiant."

we finally turned off the empty freeway, and a blinding light enveloped us. when the light faded back to normal, we were driving down a glassy hill past a sign which read "god-knows-where, pop 153" i felt oddly out-of-control.

"this is headquarters. that feeling you have, it's from not being in control, since no one's subconcious makes this up. this is one of the few real things. you'll experience that feeling every time you're in someone else's relm. come on."

i followed her quickly, into a sterile-looking building. the hallways were white tile with what appeared to be sterling silver walls and ceilings. listening to her brief remarks about my upcoming transformation, i had a sense of awe, and yet felt somehow untouched by this all, as though it was learning that a fingernail had been broken.

strapped into the dentist-esque chair, sue and two others smiled at me, telling me "it's okay...you'll go back to that day with jasmine, and then you'll be transported to what is the actual 'today.' and, given your power, you are now able to influence or cause things to happen in other's subconcious. we'll contact you from there." she gave me a reassuring smile.

"wait!" i cried as they started the machine, which, out of the corner of my mind i noticed had a orange button in the upper left hand corner, "what day's actually today?"

"why, halloween, of course!" sue said and pressed the button.

i sat in art metal on what used to be that fateful day, listening to phoebe chatter about that weekend's plans. in the past approximate time since i had left god knows where, i had had a chance to look into each of my friend's 'lives.' i found it most hilarious, yet was frightened at the way that my own subconcious had influenced each. but that didn't matter, since it technically never had happened.

i gazed at my watch, as it flicked from 8:54 to 8:55 to 8:56 and finally to 8:57. at that time, i looked at phoebe and grinned triumphantly. phoebe looked at me oddly, then went back to sawing. i excused myself and picked up the pass, heading down towards the pre-calc class. sending thoughts to jasmine's subconcious, i was pleased to see jass step out of her class a moment later. i was so overjoyed to see jass alive that i almost wept in happiness, yet contained myself somehow (can u see sara "weeping"??? i think not. sara is above that. heehee)

after holding a brief discussion with jass, i headed back to art metal. before i reached the room, however, the entire school erupted in blinding orange light, which i took as a sign that it was now halloween.

suddenly located on a dark street surrounded with karen, jasmine, phoebe, meg and kathy, i felt secure in the knowledge and severity of what i was about to do. or rather, what i was about to help someone do. i realized that this isn't something that i *should* be doing, but i figured why not, after all, i was sick and tired of having been an adult all this time when i still felt like a kid (now i knew why.) besides, i knew i could make it go exactly as planned and not get caught. so it was perfect timing.

we went trick or treating happily along down the street, and unbeknownst to karen, began to drop out of sight, one by one. first was kathy, then meg, followed by phoebe, then jasmine dropped back with a wink. when jasmine dropped out of sight, we were nearing the park, and karen noticed that something was amiss. i dryly told her "i heard jass and phoebe dicussing how they were gonna scare us t'nite...see over there?" i pointed to the grove of trees a few hundred feet away. "i think that's jass, and when we pass the trees, she, phoebe and everyone else are gonna jump out at us."

karen got a grin on her face and stopped, flapping her arms wildly,1 giving me the impression that she had thought up the "idea" that i had implanted in her brain. "i have an idea...let's sneak up on them and scare THEM!" i agreed, trying to keep from laughing at how easy it was to manipulate people, and we headed off, while i resolved to only use my power for good from now on. unless, of course i had a chance to make a certain mole jump out of my biology class' window.2

i saw jass positioned behind a tree that karen and i were about to pass and winked. i swiftly hid behind another tree, and karen found herself all alone. "sara?" she called, sounding like a little girl. "jassamine? phoebsies? kathy? meeeeeeggg!" all of a sudden, with enormous rustling noises, twelve people jumped out of and from behind the trees. screaming, karen was dragged to the ground and hog-tied.

thanking our fellow attack-ees, we bade them farewell and then pulled karen the ten feet to the grove. karen was on her back, saying "hah, hah, very funnie, you can let me go now."

but then she noticed the look in jasmine's eyes and began to feel scared.

"karen," jass said slowly, "i don't kno if you realize this, but i really resent your PERFECT scores in pre calc and PERFECT scores in chemisty and PERFECT grades and PERFECT EVERYTHING, except for your IMPERFECT story-writing deadlines!!!!!!!!!"3 and with that, jasssssssmine, phoebe and sara began poking karen4 until she was blue in the face. when they tired of this, jassmine cried, finishing her previous monologue "and now, you're going to be a PERFECT corpse and go to PERFECT hell!!!!!!!! hahahahaha!" and they whipped out their saws from behind the trees and started chopping karen into little teeny tiny pieces. (kathy and meg were the lookouts.)

when karen was finely chopped into 1" cubes, sara, phoebe and jassmine sent to work digging shallow holes and dropping a cube of karen in each. when all was done, jasmine smiled and stood up. looking at the ground where karen lay buried and scattered, she lamented "you know karen...my class was right. you ARE one of those 'friends' that everyone has and no one likes."5 and with that, she spat upon the ground, and we left, stealing karen's candy as a final insult.

all went fine, as no one commented on the loss of karen, as she was apparently also one of those 'daughters', 'sisters,' 'students,' 'acquaintences,' etc. everyone just figured that she had drowned in the river over the weekend and hadn't been picked up yet.

that was, until the following spring, when, passing the fateful grove, jasmine noticed something in the trees. heading for a closer look, she, phoebe and sara all saw what the 'something' was. twas not an apple, as what was first thought, but rather...many many miniature heads of karen, scattered throughout the tree! the girls looked at each other in disbelief, as one "karen" noticed the girls standing in a huddle, and motioned with her ears to the others. then, all at once, the heads began cackling with laughter, so that the entire earth trembled.

taking pity on one, and the entire situation, sara walked towards the tree and plucked one head from the tree, and as it turned into a life- sized karen (with only the fraction of the brain, unfortunately) sara tested her powers once again to give karen a memory of the past months, and to change everyone else into thinking that the chopping up of karen and planting her under trees on halloween was **only something discussed on the phone one night in october between two pisces-friends and the premises for laughter and taunting of karen,**6 not something had actually happened. so, as of that spring day, sara was confidant that everything was fine.