This story was written by me, Nadya Neklioudova aka Angel Mercury, on March 3rd, 1998.

I'd like to mention something about this particular story. The character Suzanne is supposed to be my mother, because what the character Suzanne is talking about really happened to my mother. The character Heather and the train setting is fictional, however. What the Suzanne character is talking about is real.

Short Story

THE UNKNOWN IN US

The train sped by a lake quickly, its reflection staying only for a brief moment in the lake’s dark waters, then disappeared along its track into the woods. It had been going for hours already to a city, and still had hours left yet to reach it. In each of the train’s cars, by now people were getting tired of sitting in their seats and reading their books, and started talking to their ‘neighbors’, telling them sometimes interesting things out of their lives to pass the time.

As the bright noon sunlight fell through the train car’s dusty windows, some of its rays happened to fall onto a thick book a young woman, apparently around 18, was reading. Casually brushing strands of long blonde hair away from her hazel eyes, she looked up from the book momentarily to look out the window. Through the old dust on the glass, she saw the people that the train passed: children playing in playgrounds, students gossiping cheerfully, old people just sitting on benches and enjoying the summer day, busy people quickly eating their lunches to hurry back to work… Remembering about her book, the young woman looked back at its pages, scribbled all over with tiny printed letters that made up long scientific words. Suddenly tired of reading, she closed the book, and the sunlight briefly shone on its title – Psychology and the Mind. About to put it away into her school-bag, the girl suddenly noticed someone sitting down to sit by her. Turning around to face the person, she saw a middle-aged woman with shoulder-length dark hair and blue eyes looking at her. Deciding that it was boring at the moment anyway, the young woman attempted to start a conversation.

"Hello, how are you?" she asked politely.

"I’m fine, thank you. You?" the other woman answered. "What’s your name?" and to make the conversation take some direction, she mentioned - "Ah, a psychology book?"

"I’m fine. My name is Heather," the young woman told her. "Yes, I’m studying Psychology in college, I find it interesting to see how people think," she said it almost as if it was some everyday thing, and opened her school-bag to put the Psychology book back in it.

"I see. I’m Suzanne," she smiled. "Listen, do you believe that it’s possible to read people’s minds?"

The question hung in the air for a brief moment of silence between the two.

"Of course not. How could that be possible? Science hasn’t shown how it’s possible," Heather stuffed the book into her school-bag and zipped it back up.

"But there may be things unexplainable by science, am I right?" Suzanne inquired.

"Well…" Heather’s tone of voice was beginning to sound like that of a school professor about to give a speech.

"All right, then do you want to hear a story that you might find very strange?"

"Umm…okay." Heather answered her after a moment of thinking. There wasn’t anything better to do at the moment anyway.

Suzanne settled down into the seat, turning to the young woman.

"I work at a scientific university," Suzanne said. "Once, a famous parapsychologic artist was invited to make a presentation at our university."

‘Well, at least this has some scientific direction…’ Heather thought, her hazel eyes returning to the older woman’s after tracking a fly on the ceiling of the train car.

Suzanne continued, regardless.

"On the day that he was presenting, everyone was seated in the auditorium of the university, knowing that this is a presentation they can’t just pass by. This man was supposed to be a person who could read others’ minds.

"In any case, he introduced himself briefly, and began by telling us to write on slips of paper simple instructions for him to do. After that was done, he selected one person from the audience to go up to him, stand behind him about a meter away, and think the instructions the person wrote. And think them clearly, one by one.

"So the man the artist selected went up to him and stood behind him. The artist looked relaxed now, and told the man to begin.

"As we found out later, the instructions were to go around and down from the stage to the seat the artist summoned the person from. So the person began thinking out his instructions.

"However, the artist hesitated to move. After a minute or so of trying to concentrate, the artist finally turned around and told the man:

" "Do you believe that I can read thoughts?" "

" "Of course not," the man answered simply.

" "Then I can’t work with you. Please go back and sit down," the artist said.

‘Uh-huh…’ Heather nodded, her face showing slight interest.

"Then he picked another person from the audience," Suzanne continued. "It was a woman, my colleague from the lab I worked in.

"Like the last man, she stood behind the artist and began thinking out her instructions.

"We all watched the man in awe as he walked down the stage with a relaxed pace to a scientific instrument inside a glass case standing on a table by a wall. He opened the glass case’s doors, reached in, and turned a lens in the instrument. Then he turned to the woman and asked her if he did it right.

" "Yes, you turned the right lens, you got it absolutely right!" the woman said, completely in awe. Just to be sure, the artist took her paper and read the written instructions out loud."

"Wow." Heather said, sounding scientific. It was obvious she still didn’t quite believe what the older woman was telling her, but decided to listen.

She tossed her hair away from her face again, it being illuminated by the sunlight that now fell in spots of shadows as it filtered down through a forest canopy that the train was passing.

"The artist smiled, told the lady to return to her seat, and called out my family’s name. I was immensely excited as my husband stepped out of the row and went up to the artist.

"My husband stood behind him, and thought out the instructions. They were to go up to my lab coat hanging on a hook by the door, and since I had four candies in my coat’s left pocket, the instructions were to take out only two.

"The artist went up to my lab coat, reached into my left pocket, and took out…all four candies," Suzanne couldn’t help chuckling. "However, then he stopped and said he sensed that there was something wrong.

" "Is it the right coat, the right pocket?" he asked, to which my husband answered "Yes". The artist still looked puzzled.

"My husband thought for him to put the candies back into the coat’s pocket, and take out only two, only two – emphasizing the word, err, thought of the number two."

"And?" Heather now looked interested.

"And the artist still took out all four candies! Now he was trying very hard to concentrate, sweat was rolling off his forehead… but still, every attempt he kept taking out all four of the candies.

"I was thinking ‘two, two, only two!’ from my seat in the audience, and after the artist’s five attempts to get the instructions right, I looked at my husband, begging him to stop torturing this poor man.

"Then my husband thought ‘take the candies, and separate them in half’. Of course, only after that he told me what he thought for the artist to do," Suzanne laughed. "In any case, the completely puzzled parapsychic artist was standing there with two candies in each of his hands.

" "Did I get it right?" he asked, and my husband finally answered "Yes."

"To dispel the confusion of the audience, my husband said that he told the artist to only take out two of the candies from the pocket. Then the ashamed artist told us that he forgot to mention that he can’t detect numbers in thoughts.

"The audience sighed, and as my husband returned to his seat, the artist went back up on the stage and decided to try another trick. He told people in the audience to take some small objects out of their pockets – you know, like hand-mirrors, hairbrushes, pins, and so on…

"And candies?" Heather smiled, to which Suzanne smiled back, "no, not candies…"

"In any case," Suzanne continued, "after all the small objects were laid on the table on the stage, he asked for someone with a very good artistic imagination, good at remembering how things look, to come up from the audience. A friend of mine - an artist - went up, and I thought of going up too – I have a very good imagination for remembering things – but I decided not to, because I didn’t think that he’d like to work with ‘the woman with the coat with the candies’ again…

"So the parapsychic told the artist to pick one of the objects on the table, do not name it, but look away and describe it in thoughts, and he’ll try to pick what object it is. And he told the audience not to think of anything, because that might spoil his concentration.

"Meanwhile, I was sitting back in the audience, thinking why didn’t I go up. I could’ve described an object very well… and I started thinking of an object I could describe – despite the fact that the guy told us specifically not to think! – and I thought of this pen that a company gave to my friend as a leaving gift. I tried to remember it – ‘it was long, ends in a sharp ‘cone’ at one of the ends… looks round… no no, if you cut it, it would be a triangular shape, so it had three flat sides… it was blue… and it had letters engraved in gold at one of the sides… I can’t remember what the letters were…’ Then I remembered that he told us not to think hard, not to imagine any things in details! So I just started quietly chatting with friends while the parapsychic on stage tried to concentrate on my artist friend’s thought description.

"Finally, he said that’s over, and tried to look for the object on the table. He didn’t find it, so he started to tell what the description he got was.

" " ‘It’s long, ends in a sharp ‘cone’ at one end… looks round… no no, if you cut it, it would look like a triangle, so it has three sides… it’s blue… and it has writing engraved in gold on one side, but you said you did’t remember what the letters were…’ "

"And can you imagine what I was going through, in the audience? He got my thoughts instead of my artist friend’s thoughts! It’s important to note that he named all the details of the description unlike gypsies, who tell many words and then look for signs of recognition in your eyes, no, he told the description as he got it from my thoughts!"

"Wow!" Heather was astounded by the story. Her always-ready scientific explanations couldn’t accound for any of this!

"Yeah. And then he asked the person what she described in her thoughts, and she answered that it’s small, in black plastic, and is reflective, and pointed to a mirror on the table, that didn’t match the description he got from me at all!

"I honestly don’t know why I didn’t stand up and say that this were my thought-description, and he got it all absolutely right. I guess I was simply astounded that it was possible that someone would pick up my thoughts over a distance of 20 meters away, when he was standing with his eyes against a wall!" Suzanne couldn’t help but smile as she watched Heather’s eyes grow bigger as her scientific principles were at a complete loss to explain this.

"Then, completely confused and ashamed, the parapsychic said the presentation was over. Everyone left the auditorium whispering and disappointed that he only got only one part of the whole presentation right, while only I knew the truth. He read my thoughts! He read them over a distance, not being able to see me or even know whose thoughts they were!"

However, before Heather could say anything to explain this astounding story, which she was at a loss to explain anyway, the train dived into an underground tunnel.

The lights in this car of the train didn’t turn on for some reason. It immediately got completely dark in the car, with only the tunnel’s small dim lights occasionally flashing through the darkness onto the faces of the passengers, changing, transforming their features, making them seem unfamiliar and unknown. People looked at each other in astonishment, trying in vain to recognize the faces of people they knew in the strange images created by dim light and darkness of the tunnel. Heather tried to recognize Suzanne, Suzanne tried to recognize Heather, both tried in vain…

Then it dawned on Heather – what do we really know about people? What do we really know about our own friends? What do we really know about our abilities?

Perhaps it really is possible to read people’s thoughts…

Questions? Comments? Email me!