Time Warp: Soul of a Writer

[Percie Hobbes]

Spring ~ 1995

Percie shifted nervously in the chair she was sitting in, her feet firmly planted on the floor. At 16, she was already edging over the boys in her grade who hadn't hit their growth spurts yet and towering at 5'10". She wished she were a lot shorter right now because that meant she could slouch and try to at least hide. Oooohhh, whoever found her notebook and decided to turn it in rather than give it back to her was going to be sorry. That was HER writing and it was PRIVATE!! She’d said so on the book if the crudely scratched “private” on the outside of the beat up notebook hadn’t been explicit enough. She sneered as she wondered who it might be and how she was going to show her “appreciation” of them giving her a one way ticket into Dr. Neville’s office.

What was she going to tell her mother? That SOMETIMES when she felt the urge to write she wrote out some pretty R-rated stuff about her friends…and sometimes teachers…it wasn’t her fault!! Okay so it WAS her fault…but…UGH THAT NOTEBOOK SAID PRIVATE IT WAS HERS GOD DAMNIT SHE WAS GOING TO KICK SOMEONE SO HARD…..shit Dr. Neville was a mind reader wasn’t he? Percie turned 7 different shades of red, purple for a brief moment before paling a little and slouching in the chair.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

In principle, Sean agreed with Sofie’s perspective. Typically, he would not involve himself in another person’s private musings, and he had no temptation to read what someone might write in a private journal or diary. He kept journals, had kept journals for decades, and he would not want anyone to read his entries or judge him based upon them either. Moreover, he thought that writing was an admirable hobby and expanded a person’s creativity as well as their language and critical thinking skills.

However, one of the teachers had passed excerpts from the notebook to him, particularly passages about Sofie describing, in eerie detail, fantasies involving other students and certain staff members. Most of the stories did not involve her, which set them apart from the typical wish-fulfillment fantasies that her peers experienced at that age.

That, in turn, had resulted in her being summoned to his office. He had never had to meet with anyone about creative writing before, neither a student nor an adult patient, which bode poorly for how this would go, but he would try his best.

She obviously felt greater embarrassment than her teacher who had passed him the notebook. That was a starting point for this, he supposed, although not a good one. He gave her a pass on her thoughts, since she had kept them to herself, and she had already lost so much privacy.

“How long have you been writing?”

[Percie Hobbes]

Percie had to really think about her answer because it was complicated and....it changed; today though the answer came easier than normal. "A couple years..." she trailed off, slouching a little and trying to look smaller. "But...sometimes I think it's been longer," she admitted because she was thinking it anyway. There were days when she WAS writing that she felt like she'd been doing it longer, but she also knew that that couldn't be true, especially because the desire to write creatively came and went without rhyme or reason. She wasn’t a writer, over the last couple of years she’d figured that out but that did not stop the NEED to write when that particular memory overtook her. She really had no idea how to explain it in words but she supposed she would try.

She’d pinpointed the moment in time that it had all started, she’d accidently blundered into the memories of a nearby classmate one day by making prolonged eye contact and when she had tried to get out something had been duplicated in the process…the need/desire/want to be a writer. Except that she was pretty shitty at it, even she knew that. Thankfully her classmate hadn’t seemed to suffer any ill effects but Percie was sure that she’d heard a rumor somewhere that they’d abruptly switched genre’s or something she couldn’t be quite sure if that was her fault or not (she really didn’t think it was but…) “A-anyway…it’s not like those are MY fantasies or anything…” she defended some of the more risqué ideas in the book with a blush. She was lying a little bit, but on top of all of this she was still wading through the idea that recently she’d found 6 boys and 4 girls in her class physically appealing to her. She didn’t even know what her type was yet but she was starting to feel certain that the “type” could come in both male and female models.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Typically, the claim that explicit written fantasies did not belong to them, when they were found in a notebook in their handwriting, with their name and room number written on the inside flap (and which proclaimed to everyone else to keep out, as they were private) would be as believable as the notion of a European swallow carrying a coconut to the Kingdom of Mercia.

However, Hammel fell outside of the bounds of typical. Moreover, Sean had great familiarity with the side effects and general outcomes of memory manipulation. He knew Sofie’s power well, possessed the same power – although most people remained unaware of that, simply because he identified as a telepath and did not talk much about the nitty-gritty of his powers. Her compulsion could come from other people, which made the statement true, although did little to change the underlying situation.

Accepting that with a nod and suppressing a sigh in the process, he leaned forward at his desk and said, “I’m not here to judge you for writing as a hobby.” He wanted to get that on the table now, to spare her needless anxiety and to allow them to cut to the heart of the matter. “Some people are concerned about the content, because it involves students and staff, and, as a school community, we aren’t good at keeping secrets. If you’ve noticed.”

Hammel kept its existence a secret, in terms of the surrounding community and its national reputation. However, in terms of the student body, rumors and gossip spread like wildfire. Everyone knew that.

[Percie Hobbes]

"Oh..." for some reason a lot of Percie's tension went away. Good, no judging...she could handle that pretty well. She sat up straighter and tucked a bit of stray hair behind a pierced ear. “Um…well, should I like put a disclaimer in there or something? I mean…I don’t usually leave my stuff lying around so I never thought it’d be a problem but…” she trailed off. Alright so content was TECHNICALLY a problem, she could change that…probably…maybe…she wasn’t sure. She just didn’t have to write that anymore right? At least not about teachers…she could totally write it if it were two teachers together though right? Cuz’ legal stuff…shit mind reading.

“UM, I mean…yeah…I’ll uh try…none of that stuff is true though…at least I don’t think it is,” she thought out loud; another hint perhaps that writing was not the sacred art form that Percie worshipped. The content could change, she was absolutely okay with someone telling her to change it and she would…if possible. She had no reason to martyr herself for something she wasn’t even sure she remembered liking from one hour to the next. Of course….maybe she should though… “the man” was telling her what to do and that wasn’t exactly something her teenage self was okay with…except that “the man” had a point and had approached the matter rather politely all things considered...crap, what should she do?

Shit…mind reading.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“That would be a start.” Sean was not an attorney and thus knew little about privacy law or the world of publishing. However, a disclaimer could help a bit, although the numerous warnings scribbled across the front of the notebook had not.

Perhaps that was an optimistic suggestion.

“While that’s good given some of the stories, truth doesn’t matter much for gossip.” Surely, she knew that. If not, he had imparted an important life lesson to her. “For instance, if you were to leave this office and tell someone that I had secretly eloped and my wife was pregnant, people would begin dropping off presents for me before the week was over. Even thought that isn’t true.”

The example hit a bit close to home on his part, given the demise of his last two relationships, but he had wanted to make the point regardless. Gossip cared less for truth or lies than it did about what caught people’s attention the quickest and lasted the longest.

For the sake of honesty, and also to relieve a bit of her fear, and, if not that, then to end some of the self-flagellation for his own sake, he said, “I am hearing it, but I won’t judge you for it, so I recommend relaxing and trying not to think about who can hear whose thoughts right now. We can focus on the matter at hand instead.”

[Percie Hobbes]

"Technically this is the matter at hand..." Percie thought with a snort. She ~ wait...she didn't like writing, she just wrote...because she felt the need to...her mind kept doing random circles. She really didn't care what she wrote about; she wasn't some crusader against censorship. Besides, he wasn't asking her to stop because he didn't like it; he was asking her to think about the consequences of her actions if her notebook was found by people more concerned with propagating it to the public rather than turn it in. “Um, okay yeah… I see your point,” she conceded. “Sooooooooooo….” She drew it out, trying to find the point of her being here because it really couldn’t be as easy as “don’t write stuff about people you know because rumors are vicious and impossible to tame.”

Then again, maybe it was, Percie wasn’t by any means dull. She might be a better athlete than a scholar but she was still pretty quick on the uptake. She decided to just go for it. “Today’s lesson is… “don’t write random fiction about real people and leave it laying around?” she ventured, once more slouching a bit in her chair and trying to look contrite, like she'd learned something.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Despite general discomfort with telepathy, Sean’s powers were not the matter at hand, and, fortunately, Percie chose not to voice that thought aloud, so that he need not address it. Instead, he waited for her to focus and work through the actual situation, regarding the contents of the writings and how that affected the student body or the staff members, when they found themselves as characters in her books.

And she did.

Already, they were ahead since he would have to drag certain other students kicking and screaming to that conclusion.

“That’s one way to put it,” he confirmed with a nod. He rested one hand atop the notebook that had found its way into his possession through a chain of student and staff member custody. “Be responsible. Part of being responsible is keeping track of our things. Another part of being responsible is taking other people’s feelings and reputations into consideration before we act.”

For the purposes of this topic, “acting” included writing stories about people she knew when trapped in the high-pressure rumor mill that constituted Hammel.

However, another thought caught his attention, and he found that worth pursuing as well. Shifting gears quickly, he asked, “And you don’t actually like writing?”

[Percie Hobbes]

"Yes sir," Percie said clearly and without muttering. She disliked repeating herself on any given day and that went double to authority figures when she had to admit that perhaps she wasn't actually right in the situation. His other question rather caught her off guard mostly because she wasn't expecting it to of any importance.

She sat back a little and shrugged the way only teenage girls could. "Well...not really? I like writing when I write, but once the urge goes away I don't really care..." she tried to explain because franky...she still wasn't entirely sure what was going on in her head when it came to that sort of thing. Well she kinda knew it had to do with her powers but it had happened a couple years ago. "Do you think that's normal?"

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“I’ve never liked the word ‘normal,’” he admitted. He found that word loaded with unfair expectations, which necessarily Othered people. “I prefer to use ‘typical.’”

Of course, that did not answer her question; it only informed her that she should use a less judgmental word when discussing herself. He saw no reason for her to place unnecessary pressure on her, especially about something like this.

Peculiar, perhaps, but he had an idea of the origin of the behavior.

The psychiatrist spread his hands in a gesture to substitute for a shrug, and then he set his hands on the arms of his chair. “You’re a memory manipulator.” Not that this was a revelation; she knew her powers, surely, but he wanted to make the point for background. “How you absorb memories and traits from other people is going to be different from someone who can’t do that, but it doesn’t sound strange to me.”

After all, Sean dreamt for other people. He couldn’t enter the dreams of other people, as that went beyond the scope of his powers, but as much as dreams were the subconscious mind’s way of working through the events of the day, he worked through the baggage of people he had never met. He’d done so for thirty years, and he would continue to do so until he died.

“If it wasn’t typical, would you stop doing it?”