Spoons

For as long as I can remember I’ve felt it in my head.  It’s a sort of buzzing sensation, like an electric circuit is constantly running in the spot just behind my eyes.  I remember talking about it when I was younger, asking what the feeling was, but my parents never quite understood.  I eventually grew to understand that this sensation was unique to me, and left it at that.  I was only five or so at that time and, having no concepts of brain tumors or other horrible medical conditions, that explanation was enough for me.

Sometimes the buzzing gets loud though, really loud, and I feel as if the roots of my teeth are vibrating.  As a child I found that taking naps helped to calm the storm in my head, but even that eventually stopped helping.

I can’t say exactly when I realized I could use that buzzing sound to move things without touching them.  It was like flexing a muscle I didn’t know I had, but one that had been there all along, flexing by itself.

I knew the sensation of doing it well enough - the feeling of the pressure in my head, the buzzing growing stronger then softer, like the beating of a heart, and a sort of invisible force pulling away from me.  I’d felt it countless times before, usually when I was upset or that buzzing was particularly obnoxious.  Things would fall down off of high counters, or cabinet doors would open by themselves.

With age came understanding, and with understanding came control.  I would quiet that buzzing by moving things around my room, stretching the muscle in my brain like I stretched my legs after having them fall asleep from sitting too long.

I was eight when I began bending spoons.  I’d seen it on television as a magic trick, and I wanted to try it.  I found quickly a whole new sensation that relieved that pressure better than anything else I’d done.  I could feel, in a way, the thick, dense metal spoon in my hand.  I pushed at it a little and it resisted.  The resistance felt good.  Really good.  I pushed at it harder, pushed harder than I could have with my own physical hands, and the spoon twisted all the way around.

The buzzing went nearly silent.

I started doing that everyday after school.  I would steal a spoon from the kitchen and spend fifteen minutes bending it into all sorts of shapes until it was nothing but a warm, useless pile of twisted metal.

I got in trouble for it, sure.  My parents found the spoons in a box under my bed.  I didn’t bother telling them the truth, because I’d become acquainted with the idea that they didn’t deserve to know the truth.  I’d tried telling them before, but they didn’t listen.  They thought I was lying or making things up.  I could show them of course, but even at six my pride and faith in my parents had been wounded beyond repair.  They didn’t believe me, so I had nothing to prove.

The years passed and I found myself needing to exercise that muscle more and more.  It became this constant pressure in my head that was begging for release.  I would slide books off of desks at school, change the times on the clocks, flicker lights, just so I could have any semblance of relief from the constant buzzing, the constant pressure.

It had gotten so bad one day as I walked home from school that it had all but consumed my thoughts.  I had been planning on going to the quarry later, hoping that perhaps breaking solid stone might give the the relief I so desperately wanted, when my eyes fell upon a stray cat.  It’s matted fur, boney structure, and feral, untrusting eyes told me it had seen a long, hard life.

I almost didn’t even think about snapping its neck.

I could feel the bones break in my head - they gave almost no resistance compared to the other things I’d taken to breaking those days - and the relief was so sudden, so complete, that my eyes watered just from pure ecstasy.

I’d never done anything like that until that day, but that was the first of many stray cats, dogs, birds whose lives were ended for the sake of my own sanity.

That first one bought me three days of relief - cats usually did for a while.  Dogs were four or five days, and birds were a day, sometimes not even that.

I’d started doing that two years ago, but it only took a year for the effects to start to taper off.  I found myself needing relief from the buzzing more and more frequently, and the hunt for prey more and more difficult.  Birds avoided me.  Cats and dogs both actively fled from my presence.  Not that it did as much good.  These days, I can hardly buy myself eight hours of relief from a stray dog..

The buzzing got worse - much worse - and the pressure was so intense it was like my head would explode and send my brains halfway to Pluto.

I found a stray dog on the way home from school and had used that buzzing to carry it home with me.  I was going to wait until just before my mother came home to buy as much time as I could before I went to bed, because although sleeping worked when I was little, the buzzing keeps me up most nights now.

I hadn’t heard her come in early - I had been too focused on the pressure.  I didn’t hear her walk up the stairs or down the hall, calling my name asking me what I wanted for dinner.  I did hear her scream though right after she opened the bedroom door and saw the dog’s head twist all the way back like an owl.

I almost didn’t have to think about snapping her neck.

I have never felt the such bliss in my entire life as I did that moment.  The pressure vanished, the buzzing stopped.  I sobbed, not from the act of matricide I’d just performed, but from the absolute euphoria I felt.

That was two days ago.  I’ve been able to keep appearances up so far, although my missing parents will eventually arouse suspicion I’m sure.  I have my dad locked in the basement until I need his help to relieve the pressure in my head, because I’m sure it’ll come back soon - I can almost feel it starting to form again behind my eyes.

Not sure what I’ll do after I’m done with my dad, but I’m not sure it matters.  They’re all just spoons anyway.