Brain Storm by Cat Gilbert (detective books to read .TXT) 📖

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IT’S A WONDERFUL feeling to be clean after being so utterly filthy. I guess it’s a lot like not being able to appreciate the mountaintop unless you’ve been in the valley. Whatever the case, it was wonderful to be rid of the coffee and whipped cream, although I did have to wash my hair three times to get it clean. I wrapped my hair in a towel, slipped on a robe and headed to the kitchen for that cup of morning coffee I had yet to enjoy. I had some serious thinking to do, and coffee is essential for serious thinking. Or thinking at all, in my case. I measured out the beans, ground them up and started the machine.

Leaning back against the counter, I took several deep breaths, letting the aroma of brewing coffee flow through me. Okay, let’s think about this. Maybe it’s not so bad. Things happen all time. Things you can’t really explain. I’m sure they’ve happened to pretty much everyone at one time or another. That one peculiar time when coincidence just seems too convenient an explanation. When you just KNOW something else is going on. I’d always had pretty severe bouts of déjà vu. Who hasn’t? Then there are the dreams. The ones where you wake up and actually remember what happened, and you just know it isn’t a dream, but some sort of warning? So you don’t drive down that particular street on the way to work that day, or you make sure to remember to lock the doors that night. Weird, yes, but common. Everyone does it, so it doesn’t make you different when it happens to you. Right? But then there’s this. This thing of wanting someone’s coffee one instant, only to find it flying toward you the next. That was just too weird for words.

Sighing, I opened the cabinet for my favorite cup, poured in the coffee, added extra cream, and took a long slow sip, savoring the richness and warmth. It didn’t taste like my white chocolate mocha, but it was satisfying and regaining something of my morning ritual did make me feel better. The time had come to face the music. Braced with my coffee, my fluffy robe, and my somewhat shaky resolve, I decided to finally drag that nagging voice that was whispering inside my head out into the open.

There were only three explanations I could think of for what had happened. One – the guy threw the coffee at me for some unknown reason. As I’d pretty much already come to the conclusion that he hadn’t done that, I had to consider the second possibility. I could move objects with my mind. There. I said it. Silently, in my head, where no one could laugh. Except me. How could I even think such a thing? I didn’t know of anyone who could do that. There was that picture of the kid bending the spoon in Tibet or something, but how real was that? And that was nothing like this. I was pretty certain I was out there on my own. Not a place I enjoy being mentally or physically.

What if it were true, though? What if I had become some sort of mental giant and could do all these fantastic things? On one hand, it might be kind of cool. The episode with the keys worked out quite well. The peanut butter and the coffee incidents, not so much.

Maybe it was time to move on to door number three, which I didn’t even want to think about but it couldn’t really be ignored. What if I was imagining all this? What if I really had lost it? My mind was starting to run away with itself and the myriad of possibilities. I could feel my heart start to race and noticed my hand was back to shaking as I raised my mug for another long sip. So much for a calm and collected approach.

Okay. I needed to get control of myself. I didn’t even know if mind moving or whatever it was called, was really something someone could do, much less if I could really do it or not, but I was pretty sure I preferred that to checking myself into our local mental institution. I needed to find out if it was real or if I was just imagining it. I needed a test. Try to move something. But what? Looking down at the cup in my hand I decided that anything full of liquid was definitely out. Been there, done that. I took one last sip and poured what was left in the cup down the drain. Then I poured out the pot too, just to be on the safe side.

I grabbed a fork from the dishwasher and then replaced it immediately with a spoon. Recalling the coffee flying at me, the idea of accidentally stabbing myself with a fork was way too vivid. A spoon just seemed safer, although, on reflection, there’s that pointy thing called a handle on the other end that could easily put an eye out. I hesitated for a second, but then I remembered the kid bending that spoon and the decision was made.

So the experiment began. The first spoon hadn’t moved at all. I have to confess that it was a half-hearted attempt at best. Part of me wanted the power, so as not to be crazy and the other part wanted to be crazy with the provision that a little pill would take care of it. Both parts of me were more scared than I like to admit, but either way, I needed to know for sure. So, determining to do my utmost, the tests began in earnest. One spoon quickly became five, then ten, as I took my frustrations out on each victim, convinced the failure lay in the spoon itself and not me. I was certain that if I just found the right spoon, it would work. I’d made my way through every spoon in the house until I was down to this one final spoon.

Now, it was decision time. Keep trying or give up. I looked over at the spoons laying silently on the floor and realized that, deep down, I was unprepared to admit to mental instability, so one of these spoons had to move, and move on its own. The alternative was simply unacceptable. Reaching out, I gently lifted the spoon from its nesting place and softly sat it on the table in front of me. Maybe, this time, it would work.

I braced my hands on each side of the spoon, lowered my head down until my chin was nearly on the tabletop and focused every ounce of my being on the silver gleaming only inches before me.

“Move,” I whispered softly. “Move, move, move.” I was practically chanting, hearing my voice tighten in frustration as I repeated the word time and again and still, not a shudder, not a quiver. Nothing. It just sat there, mocking me and my stupidity.

I jerked up, slamming the edge of the table with open palms, frustrated beyond belief and caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, hanging across from me on the wall. It stopped me in my tracks. My hair was sticking out all over my head, the towel I had wrapped it in earlier having fallen off. My eyes were big with a wild look that was definitely disconcerting and there was little, if any, color in my face. I looked crazy, which was only appropriate because what I was doing definitely fell into the ‘crazy’ category. All of which wouldn’t have been so bad, except my experiment had failed and there was a real possibility that I had slipped over the edge and actually was crazy.

Nothing else could explain it. Something was wrong with me. I knew it deep down, had suspected it for a while, but I’d been trying my absolute best to avoid facing it. This morning had changed all that. I couldn’t deny it any longer, but I couldn’t explain it either. This spoon experiment certainly hadn’t helped any. I’d been at it for hours, still had no answers, and to top it all off, now I had one vicious headache.

Exhausted, I laid my head on the table, the cool, smooth surface soothing against my cheek, and let out a deep breath that sounded dangerously close to a moan. I closed my eyes, confused and sad. What was happening to