Schedules – Must Contain Psychic Powers
So I feel like I have gotten behind on the flash fiction challenges. I started, but haven’t completed the last few. I am trying to remedy that here. This week’s Challenge was a random selection from 20 psychic powers. Random Number Goodness and I ended up with 14. 14 means I am stuck with Aura Reading. I really had trouble coming up with something, but here it is.
Schedules
07:00 AM — A knock on the door tells me it’s time to get out of bed. I am so not a morning person, but I do it. I brush my teeth, pull on my jeans and an old ratty Tee, and slip on my shoes so subtly missing their laces.
It’s soothing here. I like the comfort of a clearly defined schedule.
07:30 AM — To the cafeteria for breakfast. We can choose lumpy oatmeal, runny grits, or reconstituted and somewhat green looking eggs, or some little pancakes with juice, or maybe cereal and milk. Name a generic and tasteless breakfast item and the cafeteria probably has it. You know, if it is the right day of the week.
I do enjoy Egg Thursday. The cafeteria sure knows how to scramble some eggs. Today I choose Raisin Bran and milk.
08:30 AM — Morning Social Time in the Commons. This is not to be confused with Afternoon Social Time that happens after eating lunch at noon, or Evening Social Time after we have our scheduled dinner at six. I do understand how you might get out of sorts, as they all three take place in the Commons. Don’t worry about it, it happens to all of us. Today I just keep my head down, and avoid looking at anyone.
09:00 AM — Solo Therapy with Miss Mary. She isn’t Doctor White. No she is not. She is Miss Mary. Studies show that first names are less intimidating than last names, and allows the formation of lasting emotional bonds in such small spans of time much improved over using last names. Studies show it, or so I have been told. I am certain there have been studies.
Today Miss Mary asks me about the colors and the smells. I don’t even have to look at her to smell the pine trees and earthy smells that accompany her pretty green swirls.
09:30 AM — We discuss medications before our session is over. Miss Mary recommends increasing the dosage of my medications and tells me she believes they will help. The flashes of orange electricity and the smell of brownies tells me she doesn’t even believe it.
10:00 AM — Free Choice Craft Time in the Craft Room, which is just what we call the Commons when the craft supply baskets are out. Sometimes I paint pictures of the swirly colors and imagine the fragrant aroma combinations that would go with them. The colors float about outside everything, but are the most energetic around life.
Sometimes when Miss Janet, the Craft Time guide, isn’t looking, I eat the crayons. The waxy beef flavor of the crayons helps the medicine go down, kind of like a spoonful of sugar. Why can’t we craft with sugar? Today I draw a spoon overflowing with sugar falling into a large blue plastic pool filled with cubes of green gelatin.
11:30 AM — Time to stand in line for our daily medications. When it is my turn I have to take 3 large blue tablets with metal flakes that sparkle, and drink a large container of high viscosity motor oil. I ‘m sure it’s motor oil, though Miss Bonnie in the very starchy white uniform assures me it isn’t. The yellow firecrackers bursting with the smell of coconut oil above her shoulders assures me she speaks truth.
My medications are supposed to help me with suppressing the symptoms of synesthesia, my minds misinterpretation of my sensory input. I don’t think they are doing their job.
12:00 PM — Back to the cafeteria for lunch. I can choose pizza, or burgers, or sometimes we have fish sticks. Today I chose fish sticks. I like fish sticks. They used to be fish, alive and vibrant and swimming the Seven Seas, but now the swirly colors are gone. Oh, and they taste great with ketchup.
01:00 PM — Morning Social Time in the Commons. Um… I mean Afternoon Social Time. I told you, it happens to the best of us. I once again avoid looking at anyone and keep to myself. I don’t want to risk getting overwhelmed by everyone before my medications have a chance to kick in.
01:30 PM — Group Therapy with Miss Mary, and also some other people. I take this opportunity to see if the medications are helping. I look around the room at everyone attending.
Miss Mary, with her olive skin, dark hair and warm swirls of deep forest green floating outward from her body. The jade swirls carry with them the comforting and earthy smell of working an herb garden in the middle of the largest pine forest ever.
No, the medications are not working.
I look over at Nick,sitting next to Miss Mary, with his greasy hair and skin stretched too tightly across bones almost devoid of any muscle. The white energy pulsing from the bruises on his arms dances about the almost imperceptible blackness surrounding him. He smells of lemons cooked with bleach and sulfur.
I look at the others in the group today. There are too many people here today, and I know I am in over my head. Colors and smells and pain consume. I scream. I can’t take it. I feel myself falling, the tunnel closing in. I don’t think I going to make it to Evening Social Time today.
09:00 PM — I wake up and I can’t move. Miss Mary is there. She explains that I had to be sedated, but that I was fine. She frees me from the restraints and escorts me back to my room.
10:00 PM — Lights out. I am already undressed and ready for bed.
07:00 AM — A knock on the door tells me it’s time to get out of bed. I am so not a morning person, but I do it. I brush my teeth, pull on my jeans and an old ratty Tee, and slip on my shoes so subtly missing their laces.
It’s soothing here. I like the comfort of a clearly defined schedule.
I Have No Technical Skills 