Brain Waves

Asthma is scary. For the people around the asthmatic person, as well as for the person who has it. My asthma is mild, thank G-d, so I don’t think it’s life threatening at the moment, and I’m on a control medication, so I am usually fine, but not always. My first week of college, for example, was not so easy.

***

It was early September, during my allergy season, and though I live in Rhode Island, my college was in Brooklyn, New York, so the pollen could have been different. Also, my control inhaler was not working the way it was supposed to. It’s breath activated, so usually when I inhale I feel the medicine enter my mouth and reach my lungs. But those inhalers are finicky, and I couldn’t taste anything but plain air.

This proved to be a problem because with all of this added together my asthma got worse and worse. I barely made the forty minute walk to school, and I had to use my inhaler before I left. I also had to use it a few blocks from the school on the way back to my apartment. I tried using my nebulizer, and I finally felt like I was able to breathe again. But it only lasted half an hour.

That weekend, I went to Passaic with my older sister to visit a friend of hers. My sister’s friend, Susan, a fellow asthmatic and a certified EMT, could immediately tell something was off. She had a stethoscope, which I thought was random, but she’s in medical school, so it kind of made sense. Anyway, I allowed her to listen to my lungs. She later told my sister that she couldn’t tell if I was even wheezing or just not breathing at anything close to a normal rate.

On Saturday night, she drove me to urgent care. After I told the doctor there about my asthma exacerbation, she had me use the office nebulizer, and then prescribed prednisone, bringing me the first dose. It was gross, like Susan warned me, but I managed to swallow all three tablets without difficulty. I gave the doctor my pharmacy’s address, and Susan and I left.

The next morning, my sister and I went back to New York. She to her college in Far Rockaway, and me to mine in Brooklyn. I took the subway to the pharmacy and picked up the remaining doses of prednisone and returned to my apartment. It was afternoon when I took it.

On Monday morning, it hadn’t been 24 hours since I had taken it, but the doctor had said once a day for 5 days; she hadn’t specified a time, so I took it before leaving for class. By the time I got to school, I felt like my brain had suddenly woken up. Like the previous 18 years of my life it had been mostly in hibernation and now it was ready to conquer the world. I wondered what I could accomplish with this level of brain activity. I suddenly understood how people get addicted to these drugs. I was on breathing steroids, and my brain was drunk on air.

As I walked up to the third floor for my first class, I passed a bunch of students running to class. I called out a cheerful Good Morning to them, and some responded in kind. When I made it to my classroom, I greeted the three other kids who were early and sat down.

“Good morning!” they chorused in response to mine. The same three kids always got there before me, and so had had the previous week as practice.

They turned back to their conversation while I arranged my things on my desk. I stood up and walked over to them.

“and then I said that I was there to learn so who cares what my major is. I’m in Calculus.” A kid who was wearing a dark green sweater and black pants was talking. I recognized him as Rick, from my Bio class.

“I wish I had seen that. I’m in Calc II. I did Calculus last year.” This was a tall tanned red-headed girl who was wearing a navy and white polka-dot dress.

Something told me her name was Ava, but I don’t know what.

I turned my attention to the short Asian looking kid who hadn’t spoken yet.

‘I don’t belong here. Yes you do. Stop that. You have just as much a right to be here as the other kids. You don’t have to be as smart.’

“Different people are smart in different ways.” I said, even though his comment struck me as odd. At least to say out loud.

His eyes snapped to mine, and he looked shocked. ‘What is going on!?’ “What did you say?” he asked hesitantly.

“What does that have to do with Calculus?” Ava demanded. ‘This is so random.’

“It was in response to what… what he said. I’m sorry, I don’t know what your name is.”

“Marshall. But I didn’t say anything.” ‘This is creepy.’

“I heard you though. Didn’t you guys?”

I looked from Rick to Ava.

‘What is she talking about?’

‘I didn’t hear anything.’

“No.” they both said.

“Wait a second.” Marshall said, before I could say anything more. ‘Can you still hear me?’

“Yeah…”

‘This is really creepy.’

“Why?” I looked at Ava and Rick to see if they had answers.

‘This is weird. It’s probably a prank. But they claim they don’t know each other. Huh.’

Ava looked at Marshall, and then at me. ‘Are they talking without talking?’

“Yes, at least, it seems like it.” I answered her.

Ava jumped “What is going on?!” It was the same thing she was thinking, but the way her brain was screaming hurt my head, so I looked down at one of the desks.

“Can I guess?” Marshall asked, “I’m a psych major, so this is really exciting for me. I also want to ask a lot of questions.”

I nodded, still not looking at any of the other kids.

“She has telepathic powers of some sort. She can read our thoughts. How long have you been able to do this? Can you read anyone’s thoughts or just some people? Is it actually reading? Or like hearing? How far is your range?” Marshall spewed out questions like a kid who just got $100.

“It’s hearing. Reading I might have a choice for.” I start to answer, “But I have to see the person’s face, which I’m glad for or I would probably have a huge headache from navigating hallways. Also, I didn’t even notice that I was hearing it until just now, so it’s probably just started.”

I look up just long enough to see that Marshall is bouncing with excitement while Ava and Rick both look like they’re scared of me, then I look down at my high-tops. I hear the door behind me open, and, like a puppet, my head swivels around to see who walked in, my eyes watching as the girl who had entered at the head of a crowd walked to her seat.

‘Could a person die by losing blood to mosquitoes? What would a person with all their blood sucked out look like? Ooh, I bet they’d be all shrivelled and wrinkly. If you had someone like that, would you be able to remove all their organs and compact their skin into a small cube? How small would it get? Like really small? Or the size of a Rubix cube? Ooh, bubble gum!’

I forced myself to spin back to the front of the classroom, shuddering. On the outside, she looked so normal, but now I couldn’t get the thought of flesh bubble gum out of my head. Lucky for me, class was about to start. The professor made her way to the front of the classroom and started role call.

‘I wonder how Angie is doing. I hope she’s having a good day. I hope they take care of those bullies. I wish I had asked for cinnamon in my coffee. I should probably be organizing my thoughts for class.’ “Terra Swanson?”

I jumped a little, then put my hand up, “Here.” I quickly picked up my pen, opened my notebook and wrote the date on the first empty page. I decided not to look at Ms. Brewer, for fear of getting lost in her thoughts again. I laughed silently at the irony of being lost in thought, but not my own, and focused on class.

As I walked from my first class to my second, I looked down, trying very hard not to read any more thoughts. Sure, it was cool, in theory, but people could be pretty creepy. Speaking of, that girl popped up in front of me.

“Hey! Terra, right?”

I focused on a spot behind her left ear so she wouldn’t know that I wasn’t looking at her. “Yeah.”

“I’m Tasha Summers. We have the same initials, isn’t that cool? What class do you have next?”

Her words were so nice and cheerful, but I somehow felt like she would perhaps kidnap me, get me bitten by a huge mosquito and test her theories. She moved to walk beside me, and I felt a huge relief when we turned out to have separate second classes. As soon as I got away, I heard a voice call out from behind me.

“Terra!” I turned around. Marshall was running towards me, all of him screaming general excitement.

“Yeah?” I looked away from his face.

“When do you have lunch? I have a ton of questions to ask you.” then he caught himself. “That is, if you’re willing to answer them.”

“Sure. I’d like to figure out more about this too, so why not?” We compared schedules, and as it turned out, we did have the same lunch period. We agreed to meet up and parted ways.

The rest of the morning, I did my best to both pay attention and look like I was paying attention without eavesdropping on anyone’s thoughts. For once, I was thankful that my parents did not allow me to bring my laptop to college, because taking notes by hand gave me an excuse to be constantly looking down.

“So, I was thinking, you could be a superhero.” Marshall said as I sat down and pulled out my sandwich.

“I’m sorry, what?!” I glanced up for a second, then pulled my gaze back down.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind if you see. My thoughts are pretty much about you and your newfound talent, so you may as well.”

“It’s easier for me to hear what you actually say if I’m not distracted by what you’re not saying.” I told him, but I looked up.

‘How did it start?’ “But seriously, you could use your telepathic powers to fight crime. You could see people’s true intentions.”

“Not really,” I looked down at my food, no longer hungry. “People lie to themselves in their thoughts. Either because they need positive reinforcement, even if they don’t believe it, like you were doing earlier, or because they just are very confused. But some people could probably train themselves to just think innocent things. And some people are crazy on the inside but not on the outside.” My mind flashed back to what Tasha had been thinking. I looked up again. “And I have no idea how it started.”

‘Will she freak out if I ask personal questions?’

“That depends on how personal.”

“Can you speak telepathically too? Or can you just hear things.”

“I’ve never tried it.”

‘Why not now?’

I closed my eyes and thought a few random things just as an experiment. Then I projected my thoughts the same way I would my voice, and heard my thoughts bounce around in my head. I open my eyes and met Marshall’s, trying to project my voice the same way.

‘Test. Does it work?’

Marshall’s eyes widened. ‘That’s really creepy.’

“Sorry.” I looked away again. I saw Tasha at another table and quickly looked back at Marshall. “Maybe it has something to do with prednisone?”

‘What’s that?’

I opened my mouth to answer.

“Think it again. It’s creepy, but it’s so cool.”

I nodded. ‘Prednisone is a drug they give asthmatics who are having extra trouble regulating their breathing. It’s supposed to reset my lungs so they can respond properly to the concept of breathing normally, although normal isn’t really something I’m so great at. But I’ve taken it three times, and I’m going to again for two more days. Nothing happened by the first or second dose, but the third time I felt like my brain had new dimensions I’d never known about.’ I stopped projecting.

‘So you think that’s what started this? The third dose? Hey, I bet we could eat while we talk like this.’ Marshall picked up his fork and started eating his chicken salad. ‘My food doesn’t get in the way of my thoughts. Yum! Pickle!’

I laughed, “Yes it does.” But I picked up my sandwich and began to eat. It was a bit strange to not look at my food while I ate, so I don’t know how many answers of mine were broken up by my looking down. Soon enough, we both had to get back to class. As we walked out of the cafeteria, Marshall asked me one last question.

“Can I write about you for my report?”

I shrugged, “Sure, but I hold no responsibility for your grade.”

“Thank you! Can I text you more questions?”

“Sure.” We both paused for a second. “You might need my number for that.”

He smiled in relief, ‘I was trying to figure out how to ask.’

I gave it to him, and we went our separate ways.

After school, I collected my books from my locker, shouldered my book-bag, and made my way out of the building, overhearing snatches of both conversation and thoughts. I glanced back at the tall red brick building, wondering if I had finally made a friend, and if I would never feel comfortable meeting someone’s eyes without permission again.

Tasha fell into step beside me. “Which direction are you headed?”

I told her, while looking forward.

“Me too! Yay! Now we can walk together!”

By the end of the walk, I wondered if perhaps it hadn’t been Tasha whose thoughts had disturbed me earlier, but I wasn’t willing to risk looking at her to find out. We had asked each other ‘getting to know you’ questions, and she seemed like a really nice person. Part of me insisted that beneath her short almost-black hair were thoughts just as dark, but I would think someone like that would dress more gothic. Tasha’s pale skin had no make-up on it at all, and her nails were painted a cheery blue. When we reached my apartment, she asked me a question, though, that forced me to look at her face and see another thought, although this time it was much more common.

“So, you and Marshall.”

“What?”

‘You’re obviously together.’

“How long have you known him?”

“Uh, I met him this morning. We’re not together, I’m just helping him with an assignment.” I used the key in my hand as an excuse to look away, paying careful attention as I slid it into the lock of the front gate.

“Are you sure? You two seemed pretty intense today. Just staring at each other while you ate. Like you were talking with your brains.”

I don’t know why, but as I opened the gate, I turned back to her and did something that was probably not very smart. I looked Tasha in the eye, and thought two words at her. ‘We were.’ Then I closed the gate between us, waved to her and walked up the outside stairs to my apartment. Punched in the code at the door and walked inside, leaving the only other person I’d met with an overactive brain to try to figure out what just happened.

I didn’t really see my housemates that evening, since we all had our own rooms and usually stuck to them, so the telepathy aspect of my high brain activity was more or less useless. I spent the afternoon on homework, and got it done in record time. I spent a couple hours wondering what I should do with my extra brain space. I texted my mother who said I should paint, but I didn’t want to take out my paint supplies, so I guess I will never know what would have happened.

The next morning when I woke up, I could feel the part of my brain that had been open the previous day, but it seemed tired. Like it was ready to go back into hibernation. I took my medicine again, and left for school, but by the time I arrived, it was almost completely asleep. I was just barely conscious of it waiting in case I ever did something to activate it once again.

When I reached the classroom, Ava and Rick both backed away, but Marshall ran over to greet me with a big smile on his face. I looked at him for a second, but couldn’t hear anything.

“It’s gone.” I told him.

“What? But we didn’t test if it works over video chat!”

“Sorry, but it’s gone. I’m kind of glad. At least I’m mostly normal again.” I saw Ava and Rick relax. Their secrets were safe.

“Eh.” Marshall answered, “Normal is boring.”

That was when the door flew open and Tasha bounced into the room. “Terra! Are you an alien?”

***

By the way, Marshall failed that assignment. His professor told him it wasn’t believable and couldn’t possibly happen. Since he couldn’t prove it, he had to write a whole new essay. Tasha and I started walking back together every day, and she and I became friends despite her tendency to get caught up in really weird and potentially gross hypotheticals. Though it was a bit creepy for me to have gone through it in the first place, and though I hope I never have to go through that again, I am glad that I had such an odd reaction to prednisone. After all, that’s how I made my first two college friends.