Crystallized Minds
It began this morning. My dream hadn't ended yet and I was still fast asleep. I don't know how I knew, but somehow in my dream, my mother started saying, "Come on, why isn't she waking up? I'm late for work!"I immediately opened my eyes, still heavy with sleep; the last bits of my dream still flaking off like bits of clouds. My mother was standing over me.
"Ugh..." I groaned. "Mom... I was sleeping. Make me feel bad about it, will ya?"
She frowned. "What?" she asked. "What in the world are you talking about? My kids sure are delirious when they sleep..."
I playfully punched her. "Come on!" I giggled. "Stop!" But my mother's brows were furrowed - she was genuinely confused.
"What the what?" Mom said. It was then that I noticed the source of her apparent confusion.
"Mom!" I exclaimed, my face lighting up. "You're a ventriloquist! Cool! Teach me how!"
She sighed, shaking her head. "Honey, come on. Get up. I'm taking you to the doctor's office." she muttered. Still half asleep, I rolled out of bed and fell on the floor. My mom ended up dragging me out of the room, with me still grumbling about how my warm covers weren't on me anymore.
And so here I am, in the car with my mother, on the way to the doctor's office. She'd washed the last remnants of sleep out of my eyes by rubbing them with a warm cloth, all the while mumbling things as if I wasn't even in the room.
I stare at the back of the headrest. Although I'm almost 12, I still am forced to reside in the back seat of my mom's van. Stale cracker crumbs and juice stains from Liam and his friends dominate most of the leather seats, but the small portion that I've managed to salvage is clean. I crane my neck to see over the top of the headrest, my mom's brown hair comes into view. I relax a bit at seeing her head; however, the moment it enters my vision, my head begins pounding and my mind holds millions of sticky notes covered in writing. I startle, flinging my backpack straight onto a fresh juice stain. Rubbing my head, I manage to shake a few fuzzy pieces out of my mind.
"Harlyn! You scared me! Do you want to get into a crash?" my mom says, her eyes burning into me through the rearview mirror. I shake my head and wrap my arms around me.
I carefully peer at her head again, and this time my head restrains from pounding. However, the sticky notes are still there. I look closely at one - "Take Harlyn to doctor." More notes are appearing by the second, flying to the walls of whatever I'm looking at. Finally, I pull myself out of the vision. My arms are covered in goosebumps, and my neck hair is on end. I warily look at my mom, this time paying closed attention to the sticky notes.
"Mom?" I ask. She nods. "Um, think of a number between one and ten and I'm gonna try to guess it."
She chuckles. "Okay, Harlyn. Whatever you say." I focus on a new sticky note that's coming in. Although its writing is slanted, I'm able to make out the single number that's written on it.
"Okay, Mom," I say, removing myself from the vision. "It was nine."
She nods. "Uh-huh. Good job! I'm impressed." I smile. "Yes, but this time can you think of a number between one and one hundred thousand?" I ask.
It's quicker for me to do the sticky note ritual this time, and I read the number written on it aloud. "Thirty-four thousand one hundred-sixty-eight."
And my mother looks at me with the queerest glint in her eyes. The one word that follows this eerie stare would change my life - for the worse or better, I didn't know. "Yes..."
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