The Thirteenth Sign Chapter One

8/9/2019 The Thirteenth Sign Chapter One

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ONE

I am cursed!

Plagued, doomed, possibly damned for all time—or at the very

least, for the rest of my natural life. It has taken me twenty-seven

years to come to such a conclusion, but I have yet to find another

rational explanation for my current state. Go on and gossip if you

wish of on the possibilities of my state of mind, but what I am speaking

about is a true condition, a reoccurring phenomenon that I can’t avoid

anymore than breathing. Oh, sure, I have tried to escape the clutches

of whatever has entangled me since the beginning, but I’ve never been

able to find relief, even in the slightest way. Repeatedly, I tried to

change my surroundings—physical and mental—in order to remove

myself from the blasphemy that has hovered over my existence since

birth but it was all to no avail. Now, before you begin thinking to

yourself, this girl has gone off the deep end , please rest assured that



this is merely an acknowledgement, not surrender. There should be no

fear that I will take any rash or hasty actions at this point, but since

we’re on the subject, you may want to know what is it I am raving…

no, discussing in length about. What reported anti-blessing has hung

around my neck like an albatross for the past twenty-seven years?

It is simply this: I am just too damned agreeable!

Shocking, isn’t it? Maybe such a quality would seem desirable for

the most part, but from where I stand, it is nothing short of weakness

of character. I can’t say ‘no’ to anyone! As far back as I can recall, it

has been this way with me. Whenever someone asks something of

me, I am all too accepting of their wish. It’s as if something inside me

—something I have no control over—has to say ‘yes’. Family, friends,

coworkers, you name it. I will be more than happy to do whatever you

ask of me. Just to cut through the red tape, I was thinking of getting

‘sucker’ tattooed on my forehead.

What got me started on this verbal rampage was a call from my

grandmother, whom I lovingly refer to as Mamaw. She called me at

work just a few minutes before I was heading home and said in the

most polite but persuasive manner, “Sydney, on your way home today,

could you please stop by the house? I think I have something for you.”

I have lived with Mamaw for the majority of my life. I have gotten

very adept at picking out her code words and double meanings. For

instance, if she asks, “Are you cold?” what she really means is, ‘Close



the door. I’m freezing!’ So when I heard, “I think I have something for

you,” I knew damned well that she not only had an errand for me, but

that she had already volunteered me for whatever it was without my

knowledge or consent. No matter what it was, it was already signed,

sealed, and delivered!

I couldn’t help wondering what type of errand it would turn out to

be. When Mamaw asks something of me, I am more than sure it has to

do with my not so ordinary talent.

Dreams. That is my unusual talent. Or, to be more specific, I have

what could be called ‘psychic dreams’. I can see glimpses of the future

in my dreams, as long as it has to do with some other person. What

this means is that I have to really know the person on a somewhat

intimate level. I can’t just pass you on the street, say ‘hi’ to you, and

have a premonition that night while I sleep. It don’t work that way. I

would have to know you better than that, or at least have talked to you

on a regular basis.

Also, I do not have dreams that surround specific events, unless, of

course, the event involves a particular person. I say that just in case

you are wondering why I don’t use my extraordinary talent to benefit

humanity by warning people of horrible injustices or disasters. I don’t

really need to be told that I should be helping my fellow man with such

God-given abilities. Thanks, but no thanks. Mamaw keeps me well

supplied with enough guilt and points out my shortcomings to me in



detail (quite often, I might add). I rarely feel the need to go looking for

more reasons to feel inferior.

Most people after finding out of my psychic quirk ask me if I have

normal dreams as well. The truth is, I have to concentrate before

going to sleep if I am going to have one of these dreams that involves

future events. Actually, that is how I found out about the dreams as a

child. At about age six, my mother left my sister and me, and we have

been living with my grandmother since. What I remember about this

was not so much her leaving, because there were no goodbyes. One

morning she was gone, and as far as her being alive or dead, that is up

to speculation and is not something that is brought up on a regular

basis.

Anyway, the week before, I remember there being a lot of fighting

and arguing between Mamaw and my mother: Doors slamming, curses

being shouted, and so forth. I was troubled by all this drama and could

not sleep. It is funny, but even at a young age, I knew my mother was

a troubled soul, but when it comes to what was troubling her, that’s

something I’ve never figured out. I had insomnia issues because of the

ruckus in the house, and on one particular night, I kept a childlike vigil

beneath the covers in my bed, praying repeatedly for the fighting to

stop and for my mother to find peace. Whether it was answered

prayers or just the course of nature, I did finally fall asleep and had my



first psychic dream that night. I knew my mother would be gone in the

morning when I woke up… and that is how it started.

The dream was a simple one. I saw my mother standing on a street

corner in a mid-sized town, seemingly waiting for someone or

something to arrive. There were shops and stores lined up along either

side of the street, but as dreams often go, not a soul but my mother

was present, and she waited patiently grasping old, beaten up looking

suitcase. She swayed from side to side, staring off into the distance,

as if killing time in the hot noonday sun. Something did arrive after

some time—a person, a bus, maybe a taxi… I don’t recall exactly.

Then she was gone. All that remained were the vacant façades of the

stores that now had a washed-out look to them, baking in the hot

streaming rays of a dusty afternoon.

What was different about this dream was that all my senses were

engaged as in no other dream I’d ever. As it rose from the street, dry

and hot, the dust smelled ancient, as if no rain had ever or would ever

taint this ground. A warm breeze wafted across my skin and between

the strands of my hair, carrying the sound of wind chimes far off in the

distance, singing a mournful, random tune as they clanged together.

The color was more vivid that any sleep-filled memory in my past;

there were the faded storefronts in muted whites, blues, and red rather

than the murky grays of a normal dream. There were random sounds

of automobiles and children playing far in the background, and even



now, if I close my eyes, I can pull those sounds up from the depths of

my memory.

As I remember my mother in this memory, I recall the hint of her

perfume, strong and close to touch. As the scene blended into

wakefulness, I still recall the feel of her hands on my face. It was

sometime later that I understood she had passed away and was buried

out of state. My mother was more of a phantom that anything else and

my lack of questions kept it that way for years.

My Mamaw tells me of the first time a color TV was brought into the

house, sometime in the early seventies, and how the bold hues jumped

out at her at first, almost in a visual assault that she had to get used to

over time. This is how my psychic dreams differ from the normal, run-

of-the-mill dreams.

To answer the question I brought up before, yes, I do have what

many people consider ‘normal’ dreams. As with anyone else’s, they run

the gamut of nonsensical, nightmarish, disjointed, peaceful, and

realistic. They come displayed in full blazing color at times and present

themselves in many ways: from the beautiful to the profane. It is when

I have a connection with someone that the dreams convulse into the

psychic realm.

Enough of that. I was speaking about my curse, and the current

focus is that Mamaw, who so selflessly volunteered me for some high





postcard-like fantasy world and appear to defend these grand homes

from intruders. These estates never seem to lose my interest, even in

the oppressive heat.

Along one of these side streets that branch out from Saint Charles

Avenue is where I live. The houses set off their own unique beauty at

this time of the day, the auburn glow of the late sun striking above the

slate roofs. The leaves of the palm trees that line the sidewalk reflect

this glow, along with other tropical plants that thrive in the late

afternoon heat. A few non-native trees, hemlocks and spruces, planted

most likely by professionals to balance out the landscaping, grow

unfazed in this climate.

The irony in Mamaw asking me to stop by on the way home from

work is that I live in the same house as she does. To be fair, I am not in

the same living space as Mamaw, not directly under her nose for her

personal supervision (thank God), but I live in a separate room that

runs along the east side of the same house. It is its own room but not

an addition. It was included in the original design of the house to act

as servants’ quarters for live-in employees of the manor during a time

in which such an arrangement was a convenience and a requirement

due to lack of transportation. The house itself is a late eighteenth-

century Italianate design. Looking at the outside of the house, one

would not assume the modest entrance on the east side of the

dwelling led to a single second-story loft, but I happen to like it that





there had been no rain to speak of since the heat wave began. His

background was in the culinary arts, and he had taken up gardening as

a hobby now that he was semi-retired. Tomatoes, peppers, and leeks

flourished alongside basil, parsley, and cilantro. Almost all the herbs

were going to seed now, bushing out over the stone walkway.

As I stepped onto the porch, I noticed the most recent addition to

his home: a decorative cement ashtray. It was very Greek looking and

filled with sand for those unwanted cigarette butts that I had a habit of

leaving anywhere I felt would not be noticed. Hint, hint! A few wicker

pieces of furniture were gathered around a coffee table to the side

near the back door. I can’t count how many evenings Dave and I had

sat there in the darkened surroundings of our yards, talking endlessly

of matters important and trivial while locusts sang their mechanical

songs from the trees off in the distance.

I haven’t needed to knock on the door for many years, so I

proceeded past the screen door and through the hallway. As with all

houses of this shotgun style, I could see the kitchen from the back of

the house. There was a living room/dining room combo near the front

entry. Breathing in the air, I could smell Dave’s cooking: definitely

Southern with a note of Creole, and the red sauce seemed just about

ready.

“Anyone home today?” I asked, giving fair warning of my approach.





torn underwear, at which point his warped wit was unleashed on me

without fair warning. I was mortified; I think I cried.

Let me say that I am no wallflower, but I defy anyone—any female

of that age especially—to not be as surprised as I was and keep from

crawling in a hole out of humiliation. Let’s just say over the years, I’ve

gotten used to Dave and his, shall we say, disposition, such as it is.

“How’s the world treating ya, kid?”

“Fair, I suppose,” I answered.

I placed myself at the wooden table in the kitchen and watched him

dote over his creation. “What are you making today?” I asked.

“Jambalaya and rice. Had to throw the sauce away two times

already”

“Such a perfectionist.”

“Well,” he began, “if you want shit on a shingle, you can buy it in a

box at the grocery store. They may even have double coupons!”

“I happen to like macaroni and cheese, Dave. It has everything a

body needs.”

“Yeah,” he said in a most non-committal way, “no sense no feeling.

I’ve seen how you and your sister eat. You’ll be in a nursing home by

the age of fifty if you keep it up. You two can have matching colostomy

bags.” Suddenly, he broke his own train of thought. “Oh… thanks for

using my new ashtray.”



“Yes, I noticed it. Very nice touch, Dave. I imagine you wept

through the entire purchase.” This was my jab at him for being such a

tightwad when it came to money. Although stingy, he does have an

eye for ‘antiques’, as I like to use the term. Ever since high school, he

has never owned a car manufactured in the same decade that he lived

in.

“Just a few tears. Thanks for caring.”

“You’re welcome.” I was smiling to myself, and he shot a look at me,

grinning and peering over his black-rimmed eyeglasses, then returned

to fussing over dinner.

There were a few moments of silence while he removed the skillet

from the front burner and placed it on the back of the stove. “So, what

brings you ‘round here so late in the afternoon?”

“Took the long way home, then smelled your cooking and decided

to drop by.”

Dave was spooning some of the sauce in a desert bowl. He walked

over to me and set it on the table with a tea spoon. “There you are,”

he said and turned back to the stove. “So, you took the long way home

and…?”

At that remark, I let out a defeated sigh. Another one of my curses

is I can’t lie to anyone’s face, and Dave knew this all too well. “Got a

call from Mamaw at the end of my shift today. She has some so-called

project for me, so I’m here killing time, I suppose.”



“’Playing hooky’ is what we used to call it,” he said. “More hocus

pocus with you and your grandmother?”

I looked at him sternly. He had now seated himself opposite the

table and was enjoying a bowl of his own masterpiece. I gave a half-

defeated look while playing with my hair. “I’m sure that’s where the

smart money is.”

Sadly, Dave can read me like a book. He looked across the table at

me, giving a grunt that for a moment almost passed for a word, then

buried his head back into his bowl. Without saying a word, I knew what

he was implying from that non-verbal snort: ‘Honey, I think you’re a

real nice kid, but this boogieman stuff is a load of shit!’

I almost felt like agreeing with him. In reality, he is not closed

minded in the least. Dave himself is half American Indian on his

mother’s side. As he tells the story, his mother was a part-time

preacher when he was growing up, orating to the locals in Yuma,

Arizona, where he was born. As I had heard from him many times, she

had a way browbeating ‘good ole’ religion’ into the men the old-

fashioned way: fear!

Of course, women preachers were never a big item, even in the

desert Southwest. However, it was better to have one of their own

ramble on about the good word and Jesus than a white man any day of

the week. Seems like the whole idea of manifest destiny in the Anglo-



Saxon world was still was cause for ill will, even as recent as the mid

1940s.

My exposure to such dogmatic ravings opened up many doors of

spirituality to the man. Ideas of God, the meaning of life and so forth,

have created one of the most spiritually sound individuals I have ever

met, but that is where we have always parted company, as do so many

others.

When he moved into the house behind ours, Dave knew us (my

mother and me, that is) for what we were: psychics. Not a huge

surprise considering he had lived in New Orleans for a good portion of

his life. Most everyone you meet down here either knows a psychic,

has one in the family, lives down the street from one, or secretly wants

to be one in the worst way. And why not? There are people to be had

and money to be made. It is the local industry in these parts. As such,

people treat it as they see it—a sideshow attraction minus the cotton

candy.

Dave and I have had hours of conversations on this subject, and it

normally goes something like this: “Why can people believe in God,

something they cannot see or touch yet believe so strongly in but yet

refuse to believe in any aspect of the supernatural—other things out

there that they can neither see nor touch? Are they not one in the

same? Is God not part of the supernatural?”



Dave’s response in this argument is usually that man has an

inherent desire, built in, to follow a path designed by his creator. That,

he would tell you, goes back to pre-history, as soon as man had the

ability to think and reason. He would also tell you that things such as

psychic premonitions are devoid of any reason. Sensing something

that is not there but maybe was in the past or near future is simply not

logical.

Simply because Dave hates it so much, I would like to explain my

‘Burnt Toast Theory’. The theory is quite simple. It comes from the

sense of smell, which, in itself, is one of the oddest and least logical

sensory organs we have. Think of it: Eyesight is dependent on light,

reflecting images that are reported to the brain in a logical manner by

way of nerve endings. The end result? What you see is what you get. It

is the same with the sense of touch. Hearing is so logical we have

reproduced it throughout our history, beginning with the most

rudimentary percussion instrument to overpriced stereo equipment. All

are based off the same principal as the ear. Now, all of these have the

aspects of logic. Each identifies a physical quality that an object holds.

For example, I can tell how hard the stone is because I can feel it. Or, I

can guess how tall you are because I can see you and make an

estimate of what I know. My personal favorite? I can hear you because

you are loud and obnoxious!



Now, along comes the nose. What does it do? It identifies what can

be considered as a not-so-physical aspect of an object. It does not

define the size or the shape of an object. It cannot verify the physical

consistency. We don’t usually think much about our sense of smell

because almost every human and non-human has it. It’s a given!

We also have the ability, when it comes to the nose, to detect odors

of things that are not even there. Say what? Yes, it is true! For

instance, say I invite you over for breakfast one morning. While I’m

cooking away, the phone rings, and I become involved in a lengthy

conversation (let’s say it’s my sister, who cant seem to grasp the

concept that we live in the same house and still feels the need to call

me from just twenty yards away for talks that feel endless). Since I like

blaming things on my little sister, the conversation gets away from me,

and I turn to see that breakfast has been ruined. Thanks, sis!

When you come over, I say we’ll go out for breakfast. I have

cleaned up the kitchen, wiped down the stove, and even taken the

remains of what I was going to serve out to the trash before you ever

arrive. Voila! Except for one thing: you notice the faint smell of burnt

toast. You don’t see it because I’ve gotten rid of it. There is no trace

to be seen on the countertops because they are spotless, yet the smell

remains, and you guess instinctively and correctly that I torched the

better part of our morning get-together.



You don’t have to see or hear or feel what happened to the bread in

the toaster. There is simply an essence of what had happened there.

How do you know this? Because you have experienced it many times

before; you don’t need anyone to educate you on what burnt toast

smells like. You just know it when you perceive the odor.

The same can be said when it comes to psychic premonitions. You

just know it when you feel it. No other physical aspect of a person,

place, or thing need be present. If you have the ability, just like the

sense of smell, you can identify it.

I can hear the arguments now. ‘Sydney, the sense of smell is not

some abstract gift! When the nose distinguishes an odor, it is because

it detects particles in the air from an object, which are passed through

the sinus cavity. Things that have a smell such as smoke, perfume, or

even a rubber tire give off invisible, minute fragments of the original

object’.

This is true. As I recall from my eleventh grade science class,

besides being made up of 80 percent water, humans are made up of

energy also. Energy is a physical because it has mass. As with any

type of mass (a rubber tire, for instance), particles can break away

from it, leaving an essence of the original object. In the case of

people, their energy or the remains of their energy fragments can be

detected long after that person is gone. ‘Aura’ is the best word to

describe this leftover energy.



Now, when it comes to future events—or even dreams, in my

situation—the theory becomes more abstract if not convoluted but the

concept itself is the same. So there you have The Burnt Toast Theory in

a nutshell.

I’m so brilliant! Well, okay, don’t go praising me just yet. I’m

confident that I lifted this theory from someone or somewhere else.

I’m just not sure from whom or when.

So at this point, I let Dave’s hocus pocus comment slide. Saving my

tongue for Mamaw seemed a better use of my energy. I noticed the

small digital clock perched above the stove. I was already twenty

minutes late, and I guessed Mamaw would be tapping her wristwatch

about now, pathetically overacting in an amazed fashion. The fact that

her darling grandchild was late when she had told her specifically she

wanted to be in conference with her after she came home from work

would seem no less than a mystery.

I said goodbye to Dave as I was cleaning up. I set my plate with

others resting in the sink, ready to be cleaned at some other more

pertinent time.

“You gonna face your grandma’s fire I take it?” he asked, smiling as

he walked me to the back of the house.

“What else can I do?”

“Run.”



As a warm expression broadened on Dave’s face, I gave him a quick

hug and darted out the screen door.

The air had grown thick and sticky. The sun dropped below the tree

line and was shrouded by a thin layer of clouds. The effect gave off a

rusty glow, making the world all one color of darkening reds. The

green of the foliage was bleached to a crimson hue; the stagnant air

gave no breeze and was more irrepressible than ever with the murky

heat that clung to my clothes and hair. Wetness gathered on the brown

skin of my arms until it began to glisten.

I fished out another cigarette before going into the house. No doubt,

I would carry the smell of the ashes and smoke into Mamaw’s

presence, and she would scold me accordingly. I was mad at myself for

such a habit but never had the desire to quit. As I hacked out the first

puff of blue fumes into the crook of my arm, my stomach wrenching

with the awful taste from the filter, I made a halfhearted vow to do

away with smoking soon. It had been gnawing on my mind for some

time now that I should quit the habit. The reality was, I was more

afraid of living without the smokes, without the possibility of its

pleasure, than I was afraid of gagging my way through life with

clogged lungs and the idea of an oncoming stroke.

With the butt crushed safely under my left heel, I approached the

house. For a brief moment, I glimpsed the cool, dry air of the Midwest

where I had schooled not so long ago. This weather, this humidity I



had gotten so used to or simply endured in this southern climate, was

something that was a rare occurrence in the Great Plains where I had

studied, leaving a restless memory that I longed for. Quite privately, I

had been scheming ways to make my way back north.

Documents

The Thirteenth Sign Chapter One