The line at Java Land was no longer than usual, winding halfway through the store with various suited men an women getting their fix for the upcoming day. I piled myself on to the end of it and studied the chalk board style menu for no reason except to have something to look at. I knew what I would buy: a regular coffee, the same thing I drank every Thursday morning. Actually, I don't even like coffee. I suppose I should have tried something else, but regular coffee was the cheapest, and I wasn't here for the drink any way.
As I was staring at the menu and thinking about the fact that I was staring at the menu, it happened. Like it had on 2 other Thursdays. I didn't count on it; the times when I felt it verses the times when I didn't had no pattern and were so sparse. I've come here the last 54 Thursday mornings.
The first Thursday, I came here because I was hung over. I heard you drink coffee when you're hung over (horrible idea, damn whoever came up with it), so I dragged myself across the street from the apartment I'd crashed in the previous night and found myself staring up at Java Land. I stood in a line with some of the same people I stood with now (coffee drinkers tend to be pretty avid about their beverage consumption), my head lolling on my chest, pierced by the light and sound and clinking and talking- you get the point: I was in pain, ready for my coffee, and to get the hell away from all life forms that make noise.
I reached the front of the line and was ordering when a tingling, very light, began in my toes. I thought at first that it was the feeling of my feet falling asleep beneath me. Just as I was beginning to fear that I'd stumble over numb feet when I tried to walk, the tingling shot up my entire body so suddenly and with such force that my lips could not contain a gasp that stopped my order in its tracks.
"Ma'am?" the young clerk said warily. "Are you alright?"
I nodded dumbly and stared at the counter. As soon as it had raged through my body, it was over. No more tingling, just the hangover headache. I reached down to the counter top to try to steady myself, but something impossible happened: instead of my hand stopping on the hard surface, it passed straight through the smooth stone and into the wood beneath it. My immediate thought was that I must still be completely hammered. But I put my other hand down and it too passed through. I quickly pulled my hands out of the counter (what a weird ass thing to say). "Did you see that?" I asked the clerk.
He lifted his nervous eyes from the cash register to meet mine. "See- See what?"
Apparently not. I deliberately raised my hand and dove it, fingers first, toward the counter. This time, however, the counter was very solid and my fingers jammed into it with the force of my arm behind them. "Shit! Owe." I shook my hand to try to loosen the joints. "Sorry," I said upon remembering the absolutely petrified clerk. "…I'm drunk." I shoved 1.50 into his hand and took my coffee.
That was the first time. I went every Thursday following, desperately trying to connect the dots, but there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for when it happened and when it didn't. But all three times, it was preceded by the shooting tingle. The second Thursday I felt it was about 4 months later- just about the time I was ready to give up on it. That time, it lasted a little longer- I couldn't grab my coffee and ended up leaving without it. Luckily, it was the clerk who I'd terrified. He remembered me and did his best to stay busy while I was there. He didn't notice that I failed to pay him or take the coffee until I was gone.
By the third time (today), I was nearly able to completely conceal the tingle. Then I was ready for it. I marched decidedly to the condiments and began to experiment. Everything I grabbed, or tried to, passed straight through my hands. I focused on the feeling I had as my finger tips slid through the objects; less than water, but more than air. I realized I was actually thinking of the objects differently, although not by my conscious effort. But in my mind, solid lines of reality had disappeared. Things were more… molecular, I suppose? I'm not sure. After about 5 minutes, I decided I was done playing and headed for the door, but my hand slid right through the handle. My jaw fell open. Oh God. What if this was like when your mom used to say 'Don't cross your eyes or they'll stick that way'? What if it actually stuck?
I took a deep breath and held it in. 'make them solid again' I thought to myself. Ok. Ok. Solid lines. The door was solid. Probably a stainless steel handle. I saw it in the loose molecule-things the loose my mind and tried pressed them all together mentally until they looked like the one solid handle, but as soon as I stopped focusing, the image changed. Just like a coiled spring, the molecules jumped out of place and re-scattered themselves. I released the breath with a curse. But it was something. I closed my eyes and saw the scattered molecules again. This time, I pulled them closer together than it seemed possible and kept pushing, biting my lip with the effort (I must have looked insane), until I felt it… click into place. I opened my eyes and very slowly closed my fingers around the handle. It worked; the handle was solid again.
I suppressed a massive sigh of relief as I stepped onto the street in front of Java Land. To say it simply, that was incredible. Un-touching (that's what I called it) wasn't the only random tingle that had happened to me. A total of 42 times in the last year, I've felt the tingle with different results of strange things I could do, though this was the only time I'd ever been able to have some control over it. I became obsessed with the tingling. I stopped going to work, and applied for unemployment so I could chase the tingling all over town. Subways, restaurants, street corners, a bowling alley, Java Land- any place I'd felt it, I would return to religiously. And it was working. The tingles occurred with greater frequency the more I tried. It was my life. It is my life. "What am I?" I mused to myself.
From everywhere and nowhere, a voice answered. "You're one of us."