“What…” I began incoherently. “I must stillbe dreaming.”
“Sorry hon, but that’s my line. Find one ofyour own.”
“How did you do that?” I finally asked.
“I’m not quite sure, to be honest. The firsttime I did it was this morning when I accidently knocked my coffeecup off of the table. I tried to catch it before it fell, and foundit somehow hovering above the floor. I tried to reason it through,and could only come up with crazy, dreaming, gifted, or somecombination of all three. I tried to work it out logically, butcan’t really get anywhere from inside, so to speak. So now I putthe ball in your court to see what you can come up with.” With thatlast statement, he refilled his mug and floated the carafe back tothe tray.
My head was spinning with the implications ofwhat I had just witnessed. Not knowing what to say, I took a sip ofcoffee while I tried to compose my thoughts. After a moment, Iasked: “So … I have no idea if this is dream or reality, butassuming somehow that it’s reality, how exactly are you movingthings without touching them?”
“I have no friggen clue on how orwhy, but the mechanics of it seem to be wholly mental. Usinghand and arm gestures also seems to help intensify my control overthe object in question.” He paused for a moment, deep in thoughtbefore continuing. “I’ll try and explain what I’m thinking andfeeling while I do it, but I think that you somehow alreadyknow.”
“What on Earth are you talking about? Ihaven’t the faintest idea how you did that!” I exclaimed.
“Well, I’m not sure how to say this, but whenI walked into the bedroom to wake you up, you were floating inmidair above the bed. I don’t think I had anything to do withit since I wasn’t even in the room; you were just lying therehovering. I watched you for a minute or two in shock before walkingover and shaking you awake. You fell back to the bed and then satup screaming. The rest you know. ”He then explained as best as hecould how he did this bizarre thing. Finished, he put down hiscoffee, crossed his arms, and stared at me expectantly.
“I’m still at a loss for words,” I said aftera moment. “None of this is even remotely possible.”
“I know exactly what you mean, but justbecause it’s impossible, doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. Whydon’t you give it a try and let’s find out how crazy we both reallyare?”
Frowning, I agreed, since either failure orsuccess might help clarify the situation. I turned my focus towardthe coffee carafe when Mark interrupted me.
“Wait,” he said, grabbing his notebook andtossing it to the floor. “Try with that, it’s much less likely todo damage if your control is off. I broke the first cup Iexperimented with.”
“Ok,” I agreed, turning my chair to face thebook on the floor. Frowning in concentration, I tried to calmmyself with several deep breaths before pointing my arm toward thebook and focusing my will on it. Nothing happened. Lookingquizzically at Mark, he gave me a comforting smile and urged me totry again.
Turning back to the book, I focused myattention on it to the exclusion of everything else. Once I had thedetails locked in my mind, I closed my eyes and stretched out bothmy arms. Holding that position for a few breaths, I then sharplysnapped my hands inward while thinking COME, picturing the bookcoming over to me.
I sat there stunned for a moment, as thebreath exploded out of me with an involuntary “URG”. My eyes stillwatering, I looked down to see the book fall between my legs to theground.
“Nice,” Mark said, giving me a thumbs-up.“Next time though, you’ll need to be a bit more careful on how hardyou move something. If a small notebook can knock the wind out ofyou, imagine what something like the carafe would have done.”
Catching my breath, I nodded to agree withhim. “Ok,” I started, “that was … weird.” I said, for lackof better words to describe what just happened. Regaining mycomposure, I watched as he slowly floated the book back to itsoriginal position across the room from me.
“Try again,” he urged, “but slower thistime.”
Nodding, I carefully ran the details of whatoccurred last time through my mind and began to focus. I startedthe same as last time, narrowing my focus down to the book,concentrating on all of the small details that I could: the angledscribbles of his writing, the crossed out words and lines, the bentcorner at the bottom right of the top page. I closed my eyes,recreating the picture in my mind. Hopefully, with a firm idea inplace, it would do what I actually wanted.
Once I had all the details worked out, Iopened my eyes and let ‘er rip... gently. Slowly I saw the bookrise up and float toward my outstretched arms, angling upward as itclosed the distance. It progressed up to the point where it wasbetween my hands and then gently came to a stop, hovering therelike it was sitting on an invisible podium.
An idea came to mind then and I carefullyrotated the book until it was facing me right side up. I gentlyflipped the fingers on my right hand and watched with gratificationas the page turned as if my hand was actually touching it. Iflipped a few more pages and then floated the book over to thetable and released it.
“That was perfect!” Mark saidenthusiastically. “You seem to have better fine point control thanI do, and that was only your second attempt!”
“What next?” I asked, a littlebreathless.
“Breakfast” he answered, with a lopsidedgrin. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
Chapter 4
Mark: Breakfast Adventures
I wasn’t actually as hungry as I led Linda tobelieve, but I hoped that something normal like cooking and eatingwould bring some reality back into an unreal morning. I should haveknown better. Linda can be like a bulldog when she gets her teethinto something, and this new development was no exception. I openedthe refrigerator door to pull
