Gunther age 4, 8 years ago
Gunther remembered everything the last time they saw a seer, which was less than a year ago, and she already wasn’t too keen on them. They were obviously fake, crass, and a waste of time. “I don’t know why you are wasting what little money we have on these people when we could be eating instead.” Gunther’s level of vocabulary for a four year old was astonishing. She could speak comfortably around an adult if she needed. She often felt that, even though persons are smart and intelligent, people were idiots, and not worth the trouble. Furthermore, she must have been too vocal about it, because she often found herself alone and she often alienated herself by expressing those thoughts about her feelings..
As for those other people, she rarely trusted people enough to speak to them at all, anyway. Seers were the worst. If her mother would stop going to them, maybe they would have had more food to eat.
Last year at the carnival, where Gunther first met their first seer, Gunther could remember the scent of elephant ears confectionaries throughout. The damp air made the lights illuminating the tents feel more real. Gunther already didn’t want to be at the carnival, and now she decided the seer wasn’t very good at being a seer. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust only the seer. She didn’t trust anyone, including her own mother. She loved and needed her, but maybe if she would stop wasting her time and her money, she wouldn’t be as tired, weak, and sickly now. Gunther noticed that her mother was always working, and rarely had time to rest. She had large bags under her eyes, and she was often dragging her body from place to place. She should have never gone to the seer now, no less leave her bedroom in the first place. Even before she left for this seer, she enjoyed going to other seers on her precious free time like others enjoyed collecting lottery tickets.
But this time was different than that seer at that first carnival. They were going to a seer at a house across town. Gunther’s mother wouldn’t stop talking about this ridiculous seer. Gunther had no desire to come along anywhere, especially a seer. Furthermore, she was worried about her mother, and she could see she was running herself into the ground for something as paltry as a seer.
Gunther tried to keep her mother at home to rest, but her mother just thought Gunther didn’t want to go. Her mother couldn’t afford a sitter, so she dragged her along anyway. For the last week her mother’s mind rarely wandered from the subject of seeing one, and it was beginning to annoy Gunther. Sally did this. She knew it was going to rain. She promised a happy week. You are going to love her.
For all Gunther cared about, she just wanted to be left alone. It was not that she didn’t like being outside, it was that the didn’t like going to that ridiculous seer when her mother could have been resting, instead. Gunther would have been happier sitting still and staring at a wall.
Gunther may have been four, but, emotionally, she could keep up with understanding her own feelings better than adults could… assuming she wanted to, which she didn’t. Unfortunately, that was the limit of her abilities. She cared for others’ feelings, but she rarely had any idea what was going on in their heads, not because she couldn’t do it, but just because she didn’t try.
This seer’s place of work was falling apart. Gunther found it disgusting outside. It was bland, full of trash in the yard, and the seer didn’t seem to make any effort to keep it up or make it look special in any way. There were no special painted mystical words on the outside, any goofy tapestries, or any special decorations, aside from the hanging luminaries with candles in them, and even those looked like they were there to light up the place.
In the distance, before they got closer to the seer’s house, Gunther could already see that all the trash strewed all over the lawn was being blown to the neighbors’ lawns. The house looked pretty good from a distance. Although there was nothing special about it, it was brightly colored in red and green. But as they parked at the curb, Gunther had to wonder what was keeping the place up at all. It looked like a good gust could have knocked the place over. As they walked closer, Gunther noticed the house’s outside walls were rotting and not kept up well.
Small chunks of painted wood littered the ground just outside the walls of the establishment, and were also rotting on the ground, along with the wood that was leftover on the house. Whoever painted it, hadn’t even sanded it, first. Trash cans sat sideways at the edge of the lawn near the road, and partly on the road, dripping with goo and had trash hanging from and around them.
It looked as if someone hadn’t made an effort to walk up to place the trash in the cans. The trash may have been thrown from a distance, the person may have missed, and she just left it there. Considering what trash Gunther did see in the cans, this seer was not a healthy person.
The lids had looked like they had blown across the lawn, and were plastered up against the front wall of the outside of the house.
Gunther grabbed the tiny handle to the screen door. The door sprang open and it felt to her like the screen door was barely hanging on to the house. It squealed as she opened it, and it was obvious the spring needed to be either replaced or oiled. Furthermore, Gunther found it easy to open the screen door. It wouldn’t have taken much to knock it off it’s hinges, even for a four year old. Gunther sneezed, probably from the accumulating dust on the screen.
The house couldn’t have been less than one hundred and fifty years old, and the screen door looked as if it had never been replaced. Even the spring on the door shed rust into the air as Gunther opened the screen door.
The main door was made of hard, heavy wood. To open that one, Gunther’s mother had to shove it, and then continue pushing it once it was opened for more than two feet. Books and candy wrappers were piled high behind that door, and as she opened the door, she had to push hard to shove them backward.
Gunther wrinkled her nose in an effort to block the stink emitting from inside the house. She closed her mouth and tightened her lips in disgust.
“Stop it, Gunther. I know it’s not real.” Gunther’s mother pulled Gunther along, grunting as she pushed the hardwood door out of the way.
“I know, but it smells!”
“Quiet! That’s rude.” Once she got in, Gunther’s Mom shoved some of the piles of books out of the way with her foot so Gunther could get bye. “None of them are real. I know that. Sometimes I wonder if most people who come here know that. But it’s fun. It’s kind of like playing the lottery. I do it just to see how close I can get, and so I can feel good. I don’t actually expect to win.”
Gunther could tell her mom looked terrible, and needed sleep. She looked so tired, she was surprised her mother could even drive. Her mother always looked tired, but today was worse than others. Even for a four year old, Gunther could be attentive to others. It was just that she didn’t’t care enough to spend the energy to do so. She knew her mother must have had a hard time with a single family income. Her mother worked, often, 18 hours a day. Today was her day off. She really should have stayed home and slept, Gunther decided. Instead she was seeing this ridiculous charlatan. Her mother’s hair was frazzled, and she had black lines under her eyes. Her mother’s legs could barely hold her up, And her breath smelled.
After entering the seer’s house, Gunther immediately decided she lived there, too. The rooms were all open and connected, so Gunther could see an unmade bed toward the back. There were stacks of books everywhere, strangely, even on the bed, and piles of newspapers and candy wrappers sprawled throughout. There was even a pile of empty soda bottles thirty odd feet from the bed.
The oddest part about the whole thing was even though there were messes, they were structured messes. The soda bottles were all piled together, and the piles of books were organized by subject. The house had a rotten smell, but it changed as Gunther and her mother moved.
The carpet, which covered the inside of the house, was heavily worn down in the center, and it was obvious it was well used because the edges were thicker, fluffier, and lighter than the center of the carpet’s path, which was dirty, flat, worn in, and darker. Gunther doubted the seer ever vacuumed that carpet, and she understood why the screen on the screen door was so dusty. It must have rarely, if ever been cleaned.
The interior of the house stunk of burning incense, which was obviously hiding the stink. It didn’t do its obvious job of covering the smell up. Instead it added more stink to it.
The walls of the home were old looking and stained, and, at closer look, Gunther noticed that even the neon ‘open’ sign, which glowed from the outside, albeit slightly sideways, was also obviously a fake, just like seers, and not neon at all. Nothing was real about this seer, and even the seer, herself, appeared fake.
There was something odd about this seer, though, as seers were concerned. She didn’t seem to care about anything, even her home. She made no effort to trick anyone. She offered no illusions to her reality in being a seer. In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that Gunther’s mother had said this woman was a seer, Gunther wouldn’t have known she was a seer. Even her crystal ball looked more like an undersized plastic white beach ball, and not a crystal ball at all.
Gunther listened as the seer spoke to the current guest with her thick Louisiana accent. The more Gunther listened to her chat up the guest in the opposing room, the more she began to realize the seer was better at this game than cleaning. This seer was kind, and said all the right things to make this woman comfortable. Gunther tried to imagine the seer telling this woman how her husband was going to die soon, or they would loose their mortgage… she couldn’t.
She didn’t just tell the guest what she wanted to hear, or what was obvious. She comforted the guest. If she had any superpower, that was it, not telling a fortune or the truth.
And when the seer looked at her, she often wasn’t looking at her, or even at her things. She seemed to look into her through her eyes, as she leaned forward. As they sat at the table with the fake crystal ball in the middle, the lady across from the seer tried to see something in it. That fake crystal ball looked strange sitting on the table on its stand, and it looked to Gunther as it could easily have rolled off the stand and the table. It was obvious it was too large for both the stand and the table, or even that it was a crystal ball in the first place. Nobody would mistaken that sphere for a crystal ball.
This seer didn’t act fake at being fake, either. She was the first real fake seer Gunther had ever seen, though she had only seen a couple. The ball was obviously not glass, but at the same time, it wasn’t used much as a set piece. It appeared she may have put it there because people may have expected for it to be there.
“What about my ex-husband?” Said the guest.
“That’s what you are worried about? There are so many other problems, and you worry about the one thing you have no control over.” The seer had a deep Louisiana draw. It was obvious to Gunther she must have been from the south.
“Well… I worry about him.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s crazy.”
“So? How does that affect you?”
“Well, He just makes me crazy.”
“No. You make you crazy. Stop thinking about what you can’t control. This is a big world with many more things you can at least control a little bit that are much larger than your ex. Forget what you can’t control completely. You have much to be worried about other than your Ex. Get over it!”
The lady who was across the table leaned back and crossed her arms. “You won’t let me get away with anything, will you?” She grinned, and reached in her pocket. She pulled out a wad of cash. She got up and handed the seer the wad of cash.
The seer then got up. She nearly looked like she would keel over. She was shaped like a ripe pear. She was heavily dented, had tiny breasts, and had frazzled hair, but it amazed Gunther that this lady’s legs, tiny calves and feet could hold the seer’s own weight. In fact, it looked like could barely do that. When she stood, the seer’s calves shook.
The seer leaned on the table with the ball on it to get up. She got up and hobbled to a cash box across the room, slowly turning her back up. It was obvious she was not well. She leaned forward toward the box, opened it and a wad of cash popped up. Some of it nearly popped out, but the seer stuck her hand with the cash the lady gave her over the mound, and shoved it all into the box without counting it. It was obvious she made no effort to keep the money box organized. There must have been several hundred dollars in the box. She made no effort to lock the box, or to keep it hidden.
The seer immediately slammed the box closed, trapping the cash in it before it could pop out. She gave a satisfied look. The seer appeared to take pleasure in her messes. There was something about her disorganization that comforted her presence. Most people needed structure of some sort. But this woman seemed to strive on disorganization, especially hers. The disorganization gave Gunther a sense of satisfaction that Gunther had never felt before. She always felt she needed organization, but this disorganization allowed her to be away from the hell that was her life. It forced her not to be herself.
The seer gave Gunther’s mother a come here signal with her finger. Gunther and her mother climbed over trash, piles of books, and candy wrappers to reach the table with the fake crystal ball on it.
Her mother sat down in the chair in front of the seer, and Gunther stood next to her. There was no second seat for Gunther to sit in so she stood.
The seer sat, still grinning with no teeth showing, and looked into Gunther’s mother’s eyes, and then into Gunther’s eyes. She stopped grinning.
“This is my daughter, Gunther.”
“I know who she is.” The seer’s accent had changed. It was flat and bland and cold. There was no accent.
Gunther frowned. This was stupid.
The seer put her hands together and grinned softly for what seemed like nearly a minute, staring Gunther down. She looked at her so virulently, Gunther was beginning to wonder if there was something on her face. The seer said nothing at first. She raised her head as if she was trying to get another perspective, but kept staring at Gunther. She made strange facial gestures while staring at her, as if there was something strange on Gunther's face. The seer kept shifting the angle of her head, as if she were trying to hear something very quiet.
When she finally spoke, it was directly to Gunther. "He's here, isn't he." It wasn't a question. The seer sounded quizzical and interested. It was the first time someone, other than Gunther recognized him. Gunther had spent days in therapy because of Geoffrey, and, somehow it was a relief to hear another person express his existence as a reality, especially without Gunther bring him up in the first place. It made her feel less crazy. The seer didn’t smile or laugh. She just stared at Gunther, waiting for what Gunther assumed was to see something in Gunther’s facial gestures.
Gunther grabbed her mother, Geraldine's hand. Geoffrey, Gunther's imaginary friend in her mind, was only her friend, and no one else could see him. He was her special buddy to her. But the seer knew he was there.
Gunther’s mother tightened her grip on Gunther’s hand. “It’s OK Gunther, this is all part of it.”
“It’s OK child, I’m not going to hurt you,” The seer took a deep breath. “Do you know what a Changer is?” The seer’s false accent had completely disappeared many minutes ago.
“No?” Gunther didn’t know what to say. She may have looked four, but she was different than other four year olds. Even though she could handle many things at this point, she was flummoxed, and she would have been, even for an adult.
“Everyone has a choice to be the best or worst version of who they are. We are all born with a filter. Some of us have a strong filter. Those people have very little potential for making sweeping changes in the world, and are destined to make changes on a microscopic scale either way.” The seer leaned forward and shifted her stare back on Gunther. "These people are as paramount as anyone else in the world, but they usually fit into the woodwork, and it is harder to see their importance. If the social world were a web, they would be on the outer connecting parts of the spiral in a spider web. If they weren’t there, the web would fall apart. They are needed for its framework, but do not affect other people on it much.” The seer pulled her chair up closer to the table. Her chair scraped the floor. “Then there are those who have the potential to do great or horrible things. Their filter is thinner. What they can offer the world is all up to them. Some of the greatest people… Einstein, Newton… even horrible leaders… they could have gone either way but subconsciously chose to use their thinner filter for the greater good or for the worse. These people are like the inner connecting threads of the spiral in this spider web. Some of these people see the world as irrelevant. They get angry and mean. They don’t care about people, especially people on the outer fringes of the web because they don’t see the potential in everyone. They don’t see what or how everyone is important to make this reality what it is.”
“It sounds like people with small filters are potentially sociopaths.” Said Geraldine.
The seer shifted in her seat, frowned, and crossed her arms. Her seat creaked below her. “There is no such thing as a sociopath, though, others are often unkind to those people who have lost their way instead of spending the necessary time to help them. Calling people sociopathic is a human ideal that was created as an excuse to understand what we can’t about people, and to blame them without helping them find their full potential in goodness for and in the world and help them solve the issues they may have.”
“What are you saying?” Said Geraldine.
“Beware.” The seer leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms again. “Raise your child well. The future of humanity may be on your shoulders, Geraldine. Wonderful things may come from your child, or horrible things. She sees what others cannot. She may be the bringer of light, or the destroyer of worlds. Your child has no filter, and she may be too smart for her own good, a dangerous mix.” The seer was now a completely different person than she was a moment ago with the last woman. Before, the effects of the world seemed irrelevant to her. But now she seemed so focused on Gunther and her mother, it was starting to scare Gunther. She turned to Gunther. “And when you get picked on, you must see the greater picture and either walk away, or make the best of a situation. You have the propensity to do great damage, or alter your social surroundings for the better. You must choose what is right, in your heart, for everyone, and not to you, alone.” Before, with the last women, the seer was light hearted and seemed not to care about anything. Gunther wanted to be closer to the seer, but now Gunther was finding herself both scared, disillusioned, and even more interested in the seer at the same time. The seer’s personality changed from a wondrous fantasy movie to one of a science fiction horror movie. Before, the seer seemed to care about nothing. But now she was deadpan and serious.
Initially, Gunther was itching to leave. Now, there was something drawing her to this woman. It was initially within her to ignore everything, and just get home, so she could get on with her life, but now she needed to stay.
But this woman, as uncomfortable as this woman made Gunther feel, seemed like she was part of her. She was part of a community of two. She felt like she could understand her, even her nuances where others may not have been able to do so. She couldn’t tear herself away from her.
Geraldine stood up, and kicked her chair backwards a foot or two. “What is this? I brought my child here for a bit of light fun.” Her voice came out more intense and louder than before.
“I’m sorry, but sometimes important stumbling blocks get in the way of a lighter experience, and they must be dealt with before we can move on to more entertaining subjects.”
Geraldine grabbed Gunther's hand tighter and stood up. “I’m not paying for this.”
“There is no charge. Care for your child like the world depends on it, because someday, it might.”
Gunther was barely holding Geraldine's hand, desiring to sit. But now Geraldine was holding it tighter, possibly, even tighter than she meant to. Gunther's hand was squished in her mother's hand, and hurting, and Gunther could feel her mother’s sweat building up in it. Geraldine looked at Gunther. “Let’s go. We’ll see a movie instead, something fun, OK?” But Geraldine didn’t look like she was ready to see a movie. She looked broken, angry, and disheveled. She may have been sickly, but her anger must have been driving her. She spoke quieter and quicker with a slight angry thrust in her voice to Gunther. She grabbed Gunther’s arm, and yanked it, lightly, toward the door.
Gunther stood there in a world of confusion. Should she listen to the seer? Or was this seer the charlatan Gunther had originally thought she was? Something had changed in the seer. She sounded so self confident that Gunther very nearly seemed like maybe she believed she was real. She had already changed once when Gunther’s mother sat at the table, but a moment ago she was calm and not at all panicky. Now the seer was unhinged, more direct and focused than ever. There was something deeper to Gunther than the seer’s truth, more like a reality. There was something in her voice. Her emotions were saying something. It didn't seem to matter if she was telling the truth or not anymore. It felt to Gunther that what mattered was there was more to be learned by this person. There was a factual reality that she needed to learn about that truths couldn't offer, and even if they could, those truths would have been irrelevant.
“Child,” the seer was now calling from across the room. “You must consciously choose how you will act with every choice you make. You may be four, but you are mentally much older, and you need to think older.” It was at this point where Gunther wondered how the seer knew of her age. “Every time someone acts, you must not react. You must choose the option that would create the best long term action on a greater scale then any human reaction can offer." Her voice was louder now. " You are the center of the web. You can shift everyone else on this human web. You must think sociologically, culturally, and anthropologically. You are too important to make any mistakes!"
“But I don't understand!”
“Come see me later,” said Sally to Gunther.
“Quiet!” Her mother yanked Gunther's arm and pulled her toward the door with her sweaty hand.
“You will understand! You will! Come back! And I have more to tell you, important things! Don’t leave!” The seer called from across the room. “And you will have to make these decisions. You must hold the anger back and focus your energies elsewhere. You are different than the rest. You must choose every time. You must never choose, emotionally. You are far too dangerous. You have too much potential.” The seer’s accent had changed again by now. She had no accent, and she was forcing her words out, and loudly. She had left behind that southern illusion of hers completely by now. She now sounded completely loud, flat, panicky, and unbalanced.
“Don’t talk to my child!” Said Geraldine. “Stay away from her.”
The seer stepped forward, tripped on herself, and the chair’s legs, and knocked the chair behind herself over. She tried to move toward Geraldine and Gunther, but her body was too large, slow, and unbalanced, and her feet were too small. Continued to trip over her own feet and fell to the ground. The entire home shook.
“If you don’t stop talking to her, I will call the police.” By this time Geraldine and Gunther were nearly out the door. She was holding Gunther, tightly, by the wrist and dragging her out. Gunther could feel her mother's hand sweating against her wrist. Her hand was hurting and twisting st her arm. Gunther saw the Seer fall and Gunther tried to lean back further to see if the seer was OK and help her, but Geraldine had a firm grasp on Gunther’s wrist and was pulling her away.
Gunther wanted to stay longer by this point, but she had no control over her mother's decision to leave. Gunther needed to know more. She needed to know how the seer knew about her imaginary friend, her age, and her emotional differences. There was something here. The seer knew something and Gunther needed to understand what it was. This was becoming so curious, even for someone as lazy as Gunther, and it became important to her, she negated all her fears and stereotypes. This woman may not have been a real seer, but she was a real somebody who had information Gunther needed to know.
“Gunther, it’s not real.” Geraldine huffed as she pulled Gunther toward the door. “None of this is real. Let’s go!”
The seer called out from the ground, reaching toward Gunther. “Child. Changer! Think! Use your mind and your heart, not your anger and emotions! Thousands of lives rest on your choices, maybe millions. The web can shift based on your choices!” She yelled from the floor, shaking, reaching her arms out. “Find me, Changer, find me!”