'Anything you've got,' Lady said. 'I probably can't make things appear here...besides which, I'm useless at food, it just dissipates. From inside you. Creepy feeling, that.'
Lady looked at the hanging screen and its sparse dots. She felt so relieved to see them there, others like her, waiting...there's nothing quite like being different, yet finding people who are like you, she reflected. Not entirely the same, but similar in comforting ways.
She waited for Jack to make his decision about the food. 'Divulge my secrets the messy way, huh,' she laughed. 'There's not much to tell, really. I found out that I could make things I imagined appear when I was about twelve. I lived in a small town in the middle of nowhere, really, it was nice. Quiet, contained. If things had been different that town itself probably would've driven me mad, if I'd been normal...long story short, I accidentally destroyed most of it. I'd get angry at something or someone, be able to concentrate, and before I knew what had happened...well, my daydreams became real. I blew up the whole police station after I started thinking about terrorism. I almost, almost started a nuclear war. That was the scariest one. All that shite on the news got to me, and I started imagining, which is never a good thing...I managed to stop it though. After that my town became famous for being a UFO-zone, or something, a centre of paranormal activity. The missiles turned into kittens, it rained for three days.
'So I left when I was 17. All I had learned, really, was how to play piano. I liked it, it distracted me from everything. I'd make money appear in my hands for train tickets and real food, and make sure to be long gone before anyone saw it had disappeared. I don't know how many people've been accused of stealing and lost jobs on my part, I don't want to think about it. I always saw it as a means to an end. It was far better I be somewhere where everything was so fast and blurry that I couldn't pick out faces. I came to Broadway, got an apartment, started playing piano for Joey. It was lucky, really, ridiculously lucky...his other piano player had just been arrested for something or other, I don't know. Mafia gossip, most likely. I was given her handbag locker, and my mask was in it. When I first picked it up I fully expected half my weight in cocaine to fall out of it. But it didn't. And now, well, I'm here.'
I can't believe I'm telling him this crap...now that I say it out loud, it seems even more insane...but he's not looking at me like I'm completely mad. Yet.
'Why are you looking at me like that,' she laughed, 'It's not like I can tell what you're thinking...you're meant to be working on lunch anyway, haha.'
She turned her attention back to the dots. We should pick one, she thought. But which one, how to choose...
And what if one goes out?
Jack seemed to be about to say something, so Lady decided to cut in, 'Ahahah, yes, you heard that...it's not the kind of thing we should discuss over food. Instead, you tell me about you, what your mind can do. I don't have any way of forcing the information out of you. But I could drop something on your head, a piano, a sofa. I did that to a policeman once, but it turned into a pile of balloons before it got to his head.
'And then we get to pick a dot...'
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks