26. Sides

"I can see you when I touch you." I said, when I was seven years old, to my Mum.

"Pfft. What does that mean? I see you too when I touch you." She smiled at me.

"No, I can see what you have done, yesterday or some other times."

"What are you seeing?"

"What you did. Cooking, working, I see the pictures."

"That is just your imagination working."

But I knew it wasn't. I didn't like how it would happen so often, just by a touch. Steve, my little follower, albeit being older than me, was my biggest believer.

"You are sooo cool." He said when we played in my room.

"I just don't like that it happens at random." I said. At school it was just annoying.

"Then think of a word, like with a magic trick."

"You mean a catalyst?" A teacher mentioned that in school.

"Mhmm." His eyes wandered to the coin I let wander from one of my fingers to the next.

"A word....." I followed his eyes and looked at the coin.

I flipped the coin.

"Or an action."

*******************

I just thought it was cool, and without thinking of what it really meant or considering that a coin had two sides, I made it my catalyst.

I thought and scribbled a long time until I got the woman completed, a picture much more complex than I had intended it to be.

Whenever a vision came involuntarily, I imagined myself flipping the coin. I also actively tried to get vision by flipping my coin as well. After a long time of training, I got better. Involuntarily, my visions started to match the hands of the coin. When the woman's ears were uncovered, I only heard something; when the woman's eyes were uncovered, I only saw something.

And then, when I was nine, I flipped the coin, and it had turned black for the first time. I bawled my eyes out, too big for such a hastiness, too dumb to handle it better, and spilled everything to my mother.

Since then, I stopped altogether, and had no visions at all.

But at fourteen, when I drank the first time, I somehow wanted to overcome this trauma; somehow I even believed that it actually had always been a fantasy of mine. I don't know. I tried it, and it worked again.

After that, I tried it again, and it worked once more. Sometimes later when it went black, I was horrified and stopped, and I was able to. So, it became a little amusement.

But I started to get greedy, wanting to know about the future as I got older. So I implemented the rules, so I got myself a tattoo of my biggest fear. Still, I couldn't stop, completely. Flipping the coin when I was drunk or bored. 

I don't really understand it myself.

I know that the coin had two sides; even though every time I had it on the back of my other hand to reveal it, it seemed to be fully golden or black. It was not just a golden and a black side, more like two different coins altogether. Past and Future, the whole coin taking on a golden or black color every time.

And now, it was confirmed. When I caught the coin, it was on side A, and when I slapped it on the back of my other hand, it should be on side B. 

I had the feeling it would turn black, and did not flip the side of the coin, so it should stay golden. Fuck, no, maybe my feeling was just false.

What about the fire and the catastrophe that was about to happen? I don't know. I can't tell when it happens—a month, a year, perhaps longer. I need to find the Haruka girl, the corpse the teacher saw before dying himself. I needed to 'read' her.

"What are you doing?" Looking up, I saw my constant shadow. I right now really wished for him to believe me and help me in the morgue again. I wanted to see the corpse. Last time, I only touched her, but I want to see her state closer.

But this guy even accused and beat me with a plan in mind. Wanting to let himself be 'convinced' by me, to get closer to me, to watch me. Even his clumsy stalking was fake; I had never noticed his presence before.

One thing, I can say for sure: I will do this investigation alone. I won't speak with this motherfucker ever again.

I snorted and stood up, going home.

At home, I texted my caretaker, telling him that he needed to come tomorrow to the police station. All his further questions I ignored, not in the mood. 

Instead, I sat down and thought for the rest of the day, trying to find a way to control the situation.