a_gentle_boy | Twenty-Sixth PSI

[Ring, ring! It is 6:00 in the morning and there is someone buzzing at your door.

The day after Thanksgiving, Lucas was awakened by the sound of the telephone. Upon picking it up, he was greeted by a friendly disembodied voice thanking him for his application as a paper-boy. He'd be starting tomorrow!

. . .

The rest of the day was spent in anxiety about what he was going to do. And seeing as how he was Lucas, he came to the inevitable conclusion that he'd better make the best job of it he could. This is the reason why your doorbell is being rung at an ungodly hour -- If it's possible for a buzzer to sound polite, it does. Lucas will wait with a cheerful smile on your front porch until someone shows up to answer the door, after which he'll promptly launch into a speech that sounds as if it has been nervously rehearsed for hours. In the event that no one does, he will leave after two rings. Morning people may notice that there's no bike nearby, but there is a table meandering about your front lawn. The speech runs as follows, though you can cut him off at any time.]

Good morning, [mister/miss]! My name is Lucas. We're not acquainted, but I wanted to let you know that I'll be responsible for bringing your newspapers in the morning now. I'll do everything I can to make my delivery as quiet and punctual as possible.

Thanks very much, and I look forward to serving you!

[In the event that he knows you.]

O-Oh! Hi! Um. Ah. Oh, I have to change my speech.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Is this a horrible joke?"

I don't joke about this kind of thing.

"Sorry, it's just... Well hard to believe. Also, not all jokes are funny."

I know. It's not something anyone should believe. But it's all true.

"I'm sorry to keep bothering you with this but... I have sort of a strange question. Then again this is really strange to begin with."

Go ahead.

"If something stopped happening when you came here. Something strange. Does that meant it went away or it can't get you here?"

Time isn't the same here. If you ever go back, it'll be to the moment when you left.

"Oh... so time is stopped back home? Does that mean things from back home can't get me here?"

Not unless the town kidnaps them, too. Why? What was happening?

"Well... just bad dreams.

Anyways, I haven't had one since I've been here and I am kind of hoping that is a good sign."

. . . Bad dreams?

[Lucas blinks for a few moments.]

I don't know if that's something the town would affect, but um. They do take away everything special about you.

"I kind of had a feeling those bad dreams were related to something special. Or well, I hoped they were. So maybe this town isn't that bad?"

. . . It's bad.

It's just. All your stuff is gone, of course, but any supernatural abilities you have or scars or marks or injuries or anything are all gone, too. Magic is what people usually miss -- For me, it was PSI.

"I won't miss the strange stuff, and I don't really have much for them to take away.

PSI?"

I think it stands for 'psionics'. Psychic power.

"There are psychics too? I mean... well.. I guess that shouldn't be so surprising if other things exist they could too."

There aren't very many of them in my world, but it does exist. Magic and other things like that are more common in other worlds.

"You world? Other worlds? So there's more than one?"

Uh-huh. Like I said, most of us are all from different worlds. Some of them might already be connected, but most people are from entirely different ones.

"So where you are from there are a few psychics. Other people have magic and other things. So where were you from?"

My home was on the Nowhere Islands. It was called Tazmily.

"Oh, I'm from New Jersey in the United States. I don't know Tazmily though I don't know all the islands."

The United States? I guess you're another person from one of the Earths, then. There are a lot here.

You wouldn't know Tazmily. It's not in your world.