Original Writing Coursework
I always knew I was different, but it wasn’t until I hit the 4 or 5 mark, when I first started interacting with other children my age, that I realised I wasn’t normal, and in this culture, not being normal, was bad. I started to realise I was unique in lots of small situations, such as in class the teachers would ask us if we knew the answer, the other children would comply and quite often get it wrong. How often I lay awake wondering, if they could do what I do, would there be any need for this? Is it all a sham? That was when the paranoia set in, the endless tumbling or random thoughts in my mind as they swirled around questioning every flicker in another persons eye, every dodgy look sent my way was examined analysed and pondered. At such a young age of course this had a negative impact on me, and I was very much alone in that place, as the other children avoided me because in my own way I shunned them, alienated them, to afraid to get to close to them, to insecure really, all because of this, this ‘gift’ I had. If I was a second rate charlatan, in some country fete that sat in the back of a dark tent with a scrap of cloth across my eyes, I would claim I could read minds, and then it would be a case of off I go to the mental hospital; “Hello miss, I can read your mind, and I know just how much you despise us and if you had your way you would hang us from the third floor window.” No. This is not what people want to know, just imagine how much they would spurn you, if they knew just how deeply into them you could
travel, just how closely you could experience their emotions, like a rollercoaster, a back seat passenger in the ride of their life. So I kept quiet, and eventually over the years I have learned how to use my gift to my own advantage, and yes, I call it my gift because, as I like to imagine, it was given to me for some higher reason. Why? You ask, wondering why such an amazing thing would be bestowed upon some middle-class girl with no real experiences under her belt except the ones she has felt through leaching the minds of others. ...
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travel, just how closely you could experience their emotions, like a rollercoaster, a back seat passenger in the ride of their life. So I kept quiet, and eventually over the years I have learned how to use my gift to my own advantage, and yes, I call it my gift because, as I like to imagine, it was given to me for some higher reason. Why? You ask, wondering why such an amazing thing would be bestowed upon some middle-class girl with no real experiences under her belt except the ones she has felt through leaching the minds of others. Maybe that is the answer to your question, give a girl, exactly the same as me in every way, apart from she has grown up in a starving family of seven, their every day, week, month is a struggle for ample food and warmth. How overwhelming would my gift be to that poor girl? Not only is she experiencing her own torrid state, but sevenfold from her extensive, suffering family. Do you think she could handle this? Would she be able to explore it? Question it? Try to understand it to the extent I have? I often like to think there was a reason I was chosen, not just a freak clash of genetics in the womb and hey-presto she’s a mutant. Every day I wonder how and why I will use it, and I hope one day it will become clear, that my mind will suddenly expand and I will just know, like in those films you see and everything is so blurry and out of focus to them and some divine intervention occurs and it all becomes razor sharp and resolute. Until then I continue as normal, living every day as easily as I can, learning always the extend and limitations of my abilities, such as I can’t send thoughts, I seem to be more like a receiver than a transmitter. However on one very unusual day it seemed that I linked the minds of two people, I‘ve never really understood how, or why, or even if it really took place, but deep down I know that I did, and it has perplexed me ever since . The two subjects were a boy and a girl, they had only one class with me, and in this class they were forever holding hands, continuously whispering and having those shared ‘moments’ which they find so special but the rest of the room find nauseating. Anyway, I was on something I like to call ‘open mode’ where I allow the shallow superficial thoughts of the people in the room to wash over me, meaning it needs little or no concentration from me, and I found it very soothing. However a sharp spike of emotion punctured the noise, which in a metaphorical sense is very much like screaming into a noisy room, everything went silent as my gift zoomed in on this one particular mind. It turned out to be the boy, who was sat at the back with this girl, his arm casually slung across the back of her chair, his face lit up with easy laughter, but his thoughts were like dirt, they had an aura of a bad smell which left me nauseated. As it turned out the boy was sleeping with his girlfriends so called best friend and my god did he revel in it! It wasn’t just the smug masculine thought of it, he was actually proud of himself, of the thought he could break this girls heart to pieces if he wanted, he loved the control and had absolutely no compassion for this girl he was cruelly playing. How angry I was, that this boy even dared to do something like this, and then so nonchalantly continue, be so happy about what he was doing, in some small way I pitied him, but only very briefly, and this small shred was overwhelmed and converted to anger as quickly as it had occurred. How I wished the girl could know, that she could see this cess pit lurking behind this pretty boy façade, and I think that’s what did it, my pure raw emotion connected the two, only briefly, but it was enough. The girl must of seen something in the boy, a glimpse of what I had encountered, and it scared her, so much so that she distanced herself from him, she never did fully realise why she ran away from him, but ultimately I think she knew she had done the right thing, she had spared herself. See is this what I’m here for? To protect girls from their unfaithful other halves? I like to think not, but at the same time I was just happy I was accomplishing something with my gift, at a time when I was still to naïve to know what I could really accomplish, just how far I could go. For years I wondered what I was to become, I did well in all my exams, as the questions I didn’t know I could glean from the minds of others, and yes it is cheating, but no-where in the rules is mind reading prohibited, so I used it to my advantage. Even when my education was over I was still perplexed, every day was a constant annoyance as I tried to figure out how best to use my gift, to what mundane earthly job was it suited for? I quizzed myself non-stop, losing sleep and growing more irritable, and at this point I lived alone in a small shabby flat in Sheffield, so I was allowed no reprieve from my thoughts. I was working a full time job in the local supermarket, taking a gap year to save some money before I finally got my act together and applied at a university, finally figured my sorry state out. And yes eventually it did happen, like I had hoped it would a blinding flash of illumination came over me, it wasn’t anywhere special, there was no earth-shattering clash of thunder, the heavens didn’t suddenly open, no. I was sat talking on my phone, my frozen hands clutching the small thing to my ear and my entire body shook continuously to warm itself up. We were talking about mindless girl stuff if I remember, she was telling me about some show she had been watching, and oh it was so exciting and I just had to see it, well me being an ice block I just murmured back an unintelligible response. Suddenly she stopped her babbling and started tutting and sighing theatrically. ’I honestly don’t know who writes all this, but it’s all lies anyway.’ Being quite used to her vague tangents I inquired further, ‘Well these bloody Politicians’ came back her heated answer, ‘They just get someone else to write their speeches and cart out the same old promises year after year, and how much of it is ever actually put into practice? None’ However I had stopped listening to her, because this was what I had been waiting for, babbling excitedly into the phone I apologised profusely to her and promised to call her back later. No longer cold from my excitement I keyed in my parents home number from memory, almost falling over in my tension as it rang. ‘Hello?’ My Dad. Breathless I gabbled into the phone ‘Dad, I want to be a Politician.’
