There now, the legitimacy of these visions assaulted me like a trusting wife suddenly and rudely aware of a cheating husband. Sex on the matrimonial bed. There it is. As plain and surreal as mental pictures meeting reality. Even I couldn’t bear it.

At the same time it was like walking into a dream. Who knows the difference nowadays? I know creative visualization from the books but this is just too crazy. I could not have created this. I did not care that much. I had no stake in one guy’s daily soap opera. I did not care about pregnant cats and budding sociopaths and whatever the hell any of this had to do with me.

Lando makes cat-calling noises, turning over old pots and pans in their front yard. He sits by the door mat and looks worriedly into nothingness. I can hear him thinking again.

“Che-che?”

And it was in that moment I realized the horror of what had happened to me.

These things I hear, they began as tiny painful jabs in my head, the way migraine would feel if compressed into seconds. They happened when important turning points were about to happen in people’s lives, that somehow what was about to happen or not happen was bound to determine.

But if you think about it… who says what’s important? The missing cat? The neighbor’s kid? If any and all decisions are in some way important to someone else, then I just might go stir-crazy with all the talk that I can listen in on.

It’s getting worse. One day I might just be able to hear everything. And that will be the end of me.

This will have to stop.