I MAKE PEOPLE EXPLODE WITH MY MIND

1...

I make people explode with my mind if I think angry thoughts: pulsating heartbeats of wrath, red-streaked phantasms of rage. It's not always intentional. It's a heavy burden to bear. But it's a part of me; it makes me what I am.

And what am I? I'm not sure myself. I feel human sometimes, like on an egg-yolk sunny day, when the birdsong breeze tickles my face. Or when I'm dancing alone with myself, awkwardly swaying back and forth as I let the music inside me. Other times I feel alien, or monstrous, or demonic, and sometimes angelic. Occasionally Godlike.

I think about it a lot. Because I don't only make people explode. My thoughts make the world (am I a Bodhisattva?), changing it in ways I don't always comprehend.

I was 9 years old when I first noticed my gift/curse. Did you ever play baseball growing up? Something about it really got to me whenever I stood in those sun-soaked fields. The legions of gnats and ants and other micronauts would gnaw at my body as if they recognized my unnatural nature and were attempting to neutralize me, one tiny piece of flesh at a time.

In one of those sweat-soiled moments, on a baking summer evening where the sun couldn't set fast enough, a mosquito landed on the back of my gloveless hand. And I thought it should die. I thought very hard about it—that it should disintegrate into ash and that every little piece of it should be dissected. I wished it was smart enough to feel pain and that I could torture that little bugger myself, picking off its legs and its wings and its phallic blood-sucking proboscis.

And I guess only some of my thoughts got through, because suddenly he was a smart mosquito. And he came buzzing into my ear to talk to me, to admonish me for my violent brooding and murderous ideation.

"You need to calm down," the mosquito said. "I'm only living my life."

When I tried to reply, he buzz buzz buzzed in my ear to drown out my own words.

And before he flew off, he told me to focus on the fucking game! To get in the goddamn ready-stance and keep my eye on the motherfucking ball!

He followed me home and taunted me like that for the rest of his short life. I'd be sleeping, my window open, the cool night air seeping in, and there he would be. Buzzzzzzzing in my ear, annoying me for an entire week.

My power was fickle like that growing up. I couldn't control it, or redirect it, or turn it off. I thought I was crazy at first. When I was 13, they told me I was schizophrenic, that I was hearing things and seeing things, and that I frequently became "emotionally dysregulated." It was the first of many diagnoses.

Well, I did see things; they weren't wrong. And I don't always think those things were there, but maybe they were. Who can really say? But I knew I wasn't entirely crazy at a young age. Because once the psychologist had a pen in her hand, and she was asking me questions, and she was writing down my answers.

"Do you have trouble focusing in class?"

"Yeah, sometimes."

"Do you ever feel like you're driven by a motor?"

"I guess."

"I need a yes or a no."

I kept thinking I'd like to make her pen sharp and cut my wrists with it, that I'd like to watch a blood-red sea flood the white linoleum flooring. And then the pen cut her hand. That wasn't possible. It was a normal-ass pen.

She was holding it, and then she let out a little yelp. She dropped it. A trickle of blood came from her ring finger, marring her wedding band and turning the diamond ruby-red. And I felt really bad about it. Because I didn't want to hurt her, I wanted to hurt myself.

That was when I began to understand. I was immune to my own powers. And it hit me really hard, because I had hope before that realization. I would sit in my room and think happy thoughts, like everyone told me to. I thought if I focused hard enough, I could wish my happiness into reality.

But I couldn't. And then my mom or my dad or my sister would come upstairs and tell me about some wondrous thing that had happened to them or a friend or a friend of a friend, and I figured it was at least working for other people. That made me feel good, at least.

So now maybe you think I'm not a monster, that I really am an angel, or a force for good. Well, real life is always a lot more complicated than a childish morality play, right? Because it's not always easy to think happy thoughts when you're sad.

2...

When I was 17, I tried to kill myself. And this wasn't some bitch-made suicide attempt; some cry-for-help nonsense. I had the shotgun in my mouth, locked and loaded. And I went to pull the trigger, but the trigger was gone. I knew it wasn't my fault because I wasn't thinking anything. I was barely conscious, drunk out of my mind, with spit dripping from my mouth and the stench of dried saliva clogging my nostrils.

So, the only logical conclusion was that not only do my thoughts make the world, but there's also a Higher Being out there torturing me to stay alive. Go figure.

After that, I looked for answers. I asked a priest, a rabbi, the Scientologists, the shamans. I was emailing spiritual gurus and theoretical physicists and anyone who might know what the hell was going on. I even went to the goddamn Shinto shrine. But when you're a clinically insane teenager telling people you think you can alter reality with your thoughts, they tend to get a little skeptical.

There was one guy who would listen to me, though. His name was Diego, and I really liked Diego because we would get fucked up on pills behind the cafeteria at school and skip class together, and I would tell him that I could make Ms. Tania assign no homework this week, and he would call bullshit, but then I'd make it happen. And then he'd hook me up with another Vicodin, and we'd laugh.

He had a really bright smile and a kind of naïve boyish charm that I only realized too late I was attracted to—homosexually, I mean. But even now, I don't even think I wanted to fuck him or anything; maybe just give him a kiss and hold him and tell him things would be okay.

By the end of senior year, he really believed I could change the world because he came to me one day sobbing, saying his mother had melanoma and they caught it too late, and he begged me to do something for her. And I tried. I thought about flaying the cancerous growth from her skin and driving out the demons in her cells.

It worked. She went into remission. And Diego loved me for that. So I loved him back. Platonically, for that summer until he moved away for college. We stopped messaging each other as we slowly drifted apart.

Enough backstory.

I was 19 when I first made someone explode. I was deep into my shift at Walmart, meandering around looking for any customers that needed help. I was imagining a noose hanging from the store ceiling, strangling my manager Tommy in front of a live audience, his eyes bulging out of his head like a squeezed toy doll.

I knew it was irresponsible, but by then I had a pretty good system where I felt I could be angry in peace. I'd pinch myself when the thoughts got too dark, and usually nothing would happen. But man, was I fucking angry that day! Because I missed my lunch break to cover for my shitstain coworker Bruce, who was a fucking dick, by the way.

And so I got lost in my thoughts, and they got really violent. And if I'm being honest, I let it happen this time. Because Bruce and Tommy were such fucking assholes and I hadn't eaten.

I visualized my manager on a gigantic cutting board, naked and tied down, and I was a sentient knife slicing him up, drawing patterns into his flesh with my blade-body. It was a sadistic thrill, each cut on his pasty skin a delight. I was really enjoying his screams as he begged for his life. And I kept banishing the nagging feeling that I was going overboard, that it wasn't normal to think like this, that I was a weirdo freak.

On the other hand, it felt really good to cut that fucker up.

Eventually I snapped out of my daydream when a customer asked me where the microwaves were, and I told her they were back towards the front of the store, and she said thank you. I thought some happy thoughts for her because she was a cute young mother, and her toddler waved at me. I saw them leaving later, and the little girl was holding a new toy, one of those fake kitchen sets.

That was before we checked the breakroom. Once that happened, the store never opened again. Because they could never figure out how Tommy turned to goo covering every inch of the walls, floor, and ceiling, and how the CCTV really did just show him exploding into a pink mist without any rhyme or reason.

I feel guilty about it. It was in the news for a long time. There were conspiracies and everything, and now I knew my curse was really real because it was on TV. I kept watching the security footage over and over, trying to think happy thoughts and maybe I could go back in time and fix it, but I gave up eventually. I killed Tommy, and I had to live with it.

Tommy wasn't the last either; I had a few more moments of weakness, but no one ever put two and two together because I got really good at hiding it. I wished the blood and guts away, and it became like the person never existed. They were there, and then they were gone, candles snuffed out after burning too bright. Fireworks.

3...

When I was 21, they institutionalized me. I beat up my mom. I really regret that now, more than making Tommy and those other people explode, though I'm not proud of that either. Tommy was a piece of shit, but my mom was a good person. But I don't want to talk about it, except to let you know why they finally put me in a mental hospital.

When I beat the shit out of my mom, it wasn't my power or the Higher Being torturing me. I'm still a bit psychotic without those things. But again, I'm not going to talk about that. I really won't.

I'm 25 now, and I have much better control of my gift. I spend my days trying to make contact with the Higher Being, but it makes me look even crazier than I actually am. That's okay with me, though. They were correct to separate me from society. I'm in agreement with the doctors on that, even if we disagree on the reason.

I've tried everything to reach the Higher Being. I think it might be demonic, or that I'm an escaped experiment cooked up in a CIA lab and the Being is my handler, or maybe I'm from a higher plane of existence and being punished for my deeds in another life, and the Being is my warden. I could be an alien too; you never know with these things.

So I read all the books on demonology I could, and on theosophy and MKULTRA and UFOs and Kabbalah and all sorts of whacky crank stuff. Even when it's not helpful, it's entertaining. Everyone needs a hobby.

When I'm not working on that project, I think good thoughts about making the world a better place. I go to my happy place: I'm on the pink sands of Bermuda, lounging on a beach chair, drink in one hand, blunt full of weed in the other, beautiful people flanking my left and right, the kosher sea air, birds of paradise flittering by...

I'm not entirely sure if it's working on the scale I want it to. The newspaper headlines never read PEACE ON EARTH or CANCER CURED, but the staff at the hospital look more upbeat every day. The pretty nurse smiles at me more often, and the guy at the front desk is getting married. He showed me a picture, and she looked way out of his league.

I'm content now—self-sedated and self-policed. I put myself in a mental cage, but since I can't blow my brains out, I didn't have much choice.

Every so often, I like to imagine all the suffering in the world coming to me as a conduit, smothering my body until I finally disappear.

Illustration by 0phase.