After sex-conversations have rarely been conventional for the two of us. Most of the time we just don’t talk afterwards; just cuddle and go to sleep; and that works for us. But things had been even more unconventional in the weeks prior than they usually were. We’d recently lost a friend to Leukemia, and, looking back on the situation, I still wonder if it was nothing more than grief that drove him to ask the question that he was about to ask.

“What would you think about joining the Association?”

I was already closer to sleep than consciousness, and it took me a moment to process what he was saying. “… What?”

“The Association… It’s about the only place for, ya know… people like us.”

I pulled my face out his chest, where it had been lying and rubbed my eyes. I had come to terms with being a freak of nature and thought he had too; evidently I was wrong. However, it was 3:00 AM and I was not in the right frame of mind to have this conversation.

“Yeah, good, let’s talk about it in the morning.” I replied, curling up along side of him and falling asleep. I get the feeling, though, that he didn’t sleep quite as well that night.

His name was Jude Larson. I believe we were both roughly nineteen when he first suggested joining the Association: it would end up being the only time he suggested it, because the next morning, without much opposition, I agreed to do it; in spite of the fact that I really didn’t think it was the best idea. But I couldn’t say no; I was completely and totally enamored with him, and I’d like to think he felt the same way. I’d also like to think that if I was more vocal about not wanting to join the Association, he would have dropped the idea all together; but it’s hard to tell. In a way, I felt that I owed it to him to go along with this idea: I couldn’t ask for someone more considerate and thoughtful, who looked out for me, and it seamed as though if this is what he wanted I shouldn’t deny him of it.

What he meant by “people like us” and what I meant about the two of us being “freaks of nature” was that the two of us were “enchanted”, as the condition came to be referred to as; I’m not sure who coined it. The phenomenon began right in the very town that Jude and I grew up in. It had been going on quite a few years before either of us were born—a little less than a decade—that children were being born in that part of the country with mutated genes that caused them to use more of their brain capacity (25 more, to be precise) than the average human being. The outcome of this was that these children were much more in tuned with nature. Some found that they could manipulate the water without touching it, or fire, or wind; others could make the ground shake and boulders fly through the air, and still others could seemingly communicate with animals and insects.

A had the misfortune of being born “enchanted”; a “wind-user”, they called me. As unfortunate as it was, though, I count myself blessed that I was born when I was, and not a few years before, when the enchanted ones first began to show themselves: they were carted off to the capital and never seen or heard of again. I assume they were victims of science; cut apart and examined like frogs in a high school biology class. It was also something of a blessing that I was a wind-user, and not something more blatant, like fire. My abilities were easy to hide, and I led a relatively normal childhood. Still, I had my anxieties about it, so, of course, I kept it a secret and tried to make the fact that I was “enchanted” the least interesting thing about myself; and I did a damn good job, if I do say so myself. I was top of my class from junior high school until I graduated, as valedictorian, a year ahead of my age group. I was a vast sea of knowledge that, inevitably, would do me no good.

By the time Jude and I were born, the witch-hunt for the enchanted ones was over. The medical condition, which had once been attributed to the nuclear power plant near my town, had spread all across the country, and the government had finally found a way to capitalize on it by forming an organization called “Hyperion”, which trained enchanted folks to serve in the military: the organization flourished. I suppose it was out of some sort of desperation that people joined Hyperion; that people felt that there was nothing else they were good for if they were “enchanted”. I figure Zadok Oberon felt the same when he decided to found the Association of Exceptional Minds (which became better known as simply “the Association”).

The Association started as nothing more than a rival organization for Hyperion. It had no ties to the military or the government in general, and looked only towards bringing enchanted people together and helping them to find work outside of the military. But that agenda changed very soon, when Hyperion made it their number one goal to do away with the Association; justifying their actions with false claims that the Association was a threat to society; that they were renegades and vigilantes and revolutionaries. That’s when Oberon transformed the Association into the underground movement of rebels that they had been made out to be. All sorts of people were brought in for the sole purpose of training members of the Association to duke it out with members of Hyperion.

The next thing I knew we were on a train headed for Pointe Dume—the city where both Hyperion and the Association were based. Trains had lost almost all of the romanticism that they once held; I remember it being dirty and that the stuffing was coming out of the seat cushions. But I didn’t say anything about the conditions; when you don’t own an automobile and can’t afford to fly the train is your only other option. I sat in my seat, next to the window (there were so few people traveling by train, by that point in time, that almost all of the passengers had a window-seat that day) and read a book.

Jude sat across from me; I could tell he was bored, and I could tell he didn’t want to interrupt my reading—which only made me feel guilty for doing it. He would stare out the window for a long while, watching the scenery go by; then we would take a break and stare at me for a while, and I would pretend not to notice, even though I could feel his eyes on me, which was distracting. In spite of the fact that it made me anxious and overly cautious of very little idiosyncrasy, I liked the fact that he stared; it did my already-minimal self-esteem some good. The fact that we were together to begin with was a mystery to me; I can’t even explain how exactly it came to pass. He was a beautiful man; he walked around the house half-naked, and one of the best conversationalists I’ve met to this day. The best thing about him was that he was intelligent enough to keep up a decent conversation about things such as literature and philosophy and the human mind with me—to an extent. I didn’t fancy myself to be particularly handsome. I’d always been somewhat lanky, and I wore glasses, which made for an awkward combination; but I was too apathetic about my appearance to get up every morning to put contact lenses in, and didn’t have the money for corrective surgery.

“Hey, Buddy?” He said.

I looked up at him. “Yeah?”

He replied by mouthing, “I love you”. I grinned like an idiot and couldn’t look at him, so I went back to pretending to read.

Jude was the only one who ever called me “Buddy”. It was a pet form of my real name—Charles—but I have no idea where he picked it up. Nearly everyone else I’d ever met called me “Charley”, assuming that that was what I went by. I’d never felt like “Charley” suited me quite as well as “Charles”, but I had developed a taste for it over the years. When Jude first started calling me “Buddy” I thought it was ridiculous: I look nothing like a “Buddy”. However, it had since taken on an endearing quality… Although I wouldn’t want anyone else calling me that: like I said, I look nothing like a “Buddy”.

It was early evening when the train finally stopped in Pointe Dume. The sun hadn’t set, though it was too overcast to see the sun anyway. It was a much larger place than the picturesque shire that the two of us haled from; and filled with depravity that we hadn’t been exposed to. The train station was in a bad neighborhood and we to walk to a previously selected place, where we would meet a member of the Association, who would escort us to their headquarters. I could tell that walking through the slums made Jude extremely nervous, though he tried not to let it show, which was good because, at the time, I’m ashamed to admit, I was completely dependant upon him, emotionally.

Before we left, Jude had spoken to a representative from the Association who gave him directions to where we would meet another representative who would usher us to the Association’s headquarters.

He followed the directions—which he had written on a napkin—deep into the neighborhood wherein the train station resided. It was just outside of the metro area of Pointe Dume, and the homes there weren’t quite as shabby as I would have suspected, though the sky was gray and the whole city just seamed bleak (foreshadowing that I didn’t notice at the time).

The directions ended at an intersection with a house on a large hill on one side.

“I guess this is it.” Jude said. “… What time is it?”

I looked at my watch. “… Four-ish.”

“That guy from the Association should be here by now.”

“Are you Jude Larson and Charles Freyer?” A voice called from the hill just above my head. There sat a black haired fellow in a green flannel shirt, who had seemingly materialized there as if by magic. I was sure I hadn’t seen him when we passed only seconds before, and remembered noting how bare that very hill looked.

“That’s us.” Jude said; apparently unphased by this young man’s sudden manifestation

“I’m here to pick you up.” The black haired fellow stated frigidly. “Come with me.”

He led us down the street to a car. It was old and a mustard color. There he stopped, turned around and looked at us.

“Until you’re officially inducted into the Association of Exceptional Minds, you are not to know the location of its headquarters. For this reason you’ll be blindfolded the entire way there.” He explained—not a shred of emotion in his voice—as he pulled two handkerchiefs from his pockets.

I glanced up at Jude, trying to communicate my suspicion to him with body language, but he didn’t catch it.

“Alright.” Jude said.

He blindfolded Jude first. I watched and tried to stifle myself from smiling, while watching our escort—who couldn’t have been more than 5’7”—struggle to successfully blindfold Jude, who was around 6’2”. I don’t know if it was that he noticed me watching and trying not to smile, or if he had caught my suspicious glance to Jude, but just as he came over to blindfold me, our escort shot me an angry stare. I tried to pass it off as nothing, and simple took of my glasses and let him blindfold me without any trouble.

After sex-conversations have rarely been conventional for the two of us. Most of the time we just don’t talk afterwards; just cuddle and go to sleep; and that works for us. But things had been even more unconventional in the weeks prior than they usually were. We’d recently lost a friend to Leukemia, and, looking back on the situation, I still wonder if it was nothing more than grief that drove him to ask the question that he was about to ask.

“What would you think about joining the Association?”

I was already closer to sleep than consciousness, and it took me a moment to process what he was saying. “… What?”

“The Association… It’s about the only place for, ya know… people like us.”

I pulled my face out his chest, where it had been lying and rubbed my eyes. I had come to terms with being a freak of nature and thought he had too; evidently I was wrong. However, it was 3:00 AM and I was not in the right frame of mind to have this conversation.

“Yeah, good, let’s talk about it in the morning.” I replied, curling up along side of him and falling asleep. I get the feeling, though, that he didn’t sleep quite as well that night.

His name was Jude Larson. I believe we were both roughly nineteen when he first suggested joining the Association: it would end up being the only time he suggested it, because the next morning, without much opposition, I agreed to do it; in spite of the fact that I really didn’t think it was the best idea. But I couldn’t say no; I was completely and totally enamored with him, and I’d like to think he felt the same way. I’d also like to think that if I was more vocal about not wanting to join the Association, he would have dropped the idea all together; but it’s hard to tell. In a way, I felt that I owed it to him to go along with this idea: I couldn’t ask for someone more considerate and thoughtful, who looked out for me, and it seamed as though if this is what he wanted I shouldn’t deny him of it.

What he meant by “people like us” and what I meant about the two of us being “freaks of nature” was that the two of us were “enchanted”, as the condition came to be referred to as; I’m not sure who coined it. The phenomenon began right in the very town that Jude and I grew up in. It had been going on quite a few years before either of us were born—a little less than a decade—that children were being born in that part of the country with mutated genes that caused them to use more of their brain capacity (25 more, to be precise) than the average human being. The outcome of this was that these children were much more in tuned with nature. Some found that they could manipulate the water without touching it, or fire, or wind; others could make the ground shake and boulders fly through the air, and still others could seemingly communicate with animals and insects.

A had the misfortune of being born “enchanted”; a “wind-user”, they called me. As unfortunate as it was, though, I count myself blessed that I was born when I was, and not a few years before, when the enchanted ones first began to show themselves: they were carted off to the capital and never seen or heard of again. I assume they were victims of science; cut apart and examined like frogs in a high school biology class. It was also something of a blessing that I was a wind-user, and not something more blatant, like fire. My abilities were easy to hide, and I led a relatively normal childhood. Still, I had my anxieties about it, so, of course, I kept it a secret and tried to make the fact that I was “enchanted” the least interesting thing about myself; and I did a damn good job, if I do say so myself. I was top of my class from junior high school until I graduated, as valedictorian, a year ahead of my age group. I was a vast sea of knowledge that, inevitably, would do me no good.

By the time Jude and I were born, the witch-hunt for the enchanted ones was over. The medical condition, which had once been attributed to the nuclear power plant near my town, had spread all across the country, and the government had finally found a way to capitalize on it by forming an organization called “Hyperion”, which trained enchanted folks to serve in the military: the organization flourished. I suppose it was out of some sort of desperation that people joined Hyperion; that people felt that there was nothing else they were good for if they were “enchanted”. I figure Zadok Oberon felt the same when he decided to found the Association of Exceptional Minds (which became better known as simply “the Association”).

The Association started as nothing more than a rival organization for Hyperion. It had no ties to the military or the government in general, and looked only towards bringing enchanted people together and helping them to find work outside of the military. But that agenda changed very soon, when Hyperion made it their number one goal to do away with the Association; justifying their actions with false claims that the Association was a threat to society; that they were renegades and vigilantes and revolutionaries. That’s when Oberon transformed the Association into the underground movement of rebels that they had been made out to be. All sorts of people were brought in for the sole purpose of training members of the Association to duke it out with members of Hyperion.

The next thing I knew we were on a train headed for Pointe Dume—the city where both Hyperion and the Association were based. Trains had lost almost all of the romanticism that they once held; I remember it being dirty and that the stuffing was coming out of the seat cushions. But I didn’t say anything about the conditions; when you don’t own an automobile and can’t afford to fly the train is your only other option. I sat in my seat, next to the window (there were so few people traveling by train, by that point in time, that almost all of the passengers had a window-seat that day) and read a book.

Jude sat across from me; I could tell he was bored, and I could tell he didn’t want to interrupt my reading—which only made me feel guilty for doing it. He would stare out the window for a long while, watching the scenery go by; then we would take a break and stare at me for a while, and I would pretend not to notice, even though I could feel his eyes on me, which was distracting. In spite of the fact that it made me anxious and overly cautious of very little idiosyncrasy, I liked the fact that he stared; it did my already-minimal self-esteem some good. The fact that we were together to begin with was a mystery to me; I can’t even explain how exactly it came to pass. He was a beautiful man; he walked around the house half-naked, and one of the best conversationalists I’ve met to this day. The best thing about him was that he was intelligent enough to keep up a decent conversation about things such as literature and philosophy and the human mind with me—to an extent. I didn’t fancy myself to be particularly handsome. I’d always been somewhat lanky, and I wore glasses, which made for an awkward combination; but I was too apathetic about my appearance to get up every morning to put contact lenses in, and didn’t have the money for corrective surgery.

“Hey, Buddy?” He said.

I looked up at him. “Yeah?”

He replied by mouthing, “I love you”. I grinned like an idiot and couldn’t look at him, so I went back to pretending to read.

Jude was the only one who ever called me “Buddy”. It was a pet form of my real name—Charles—but I have no idea where he picked it up. Nearly everyone else I’d ever met called me “Charley”, assuming that that was what I went by. I’d never felt like “Charley” suited me quite as well as “Charles”, but I had developed a taste for it over the years. When Jude first started calling me “Buddy” I thought it was ridiculous: I look nothing like a “Buddy”. However, it had since taken on an endearing quality… Although I wouldn’t want anyone else calling me that: like I said, I look nothing like a “Buddy”.

It was early evening when the train finally stopped in Pointe Dume. The sun hadn’t set, though it was too overcast to see the sun anyway. It was a much larger place than the picturesque shire that the two of us haled from; and filled with depravity that we hadn’t been exposed to. The train station was in a bad neighborhood and we to walk to a previously selected place, where we would meet a member of the Association, who would escort us to their headquarters. I could tell that walking through the slums made Jude extremely nervous, though he tried not to let it show, which was good because, at the time, I’m ashamed to admit, I was completely dependant upon him, emotionally.

Before we left, Jude had spoken to a representative from the Association who gave him directions to where we would meet another representative who would usher us to the Association’s headquarters.

He followed the directions—which he had written on a napkin—deep into the neighborhood wherein the train station resided. It was just outside of the metro area of Pointe Dume, and the homes there weren’t quite as shabby as I would have suspected, though the sky was gray and the whole city just seamed bleak (foreshadowing that I didn’t notice at the time).

The directions ended at an intersection with a house on a large hill on one side.

“I guess this is it.” Jude said. “… What time is it?”

I looked at my watch. “… Four-ish.”

“That guy from the Association should be here by now.”

“Are you Jude Larson and Charles Freyer?” A voice called from the hill just above my head. There sat a black haired fellow in a green flannel shirt, who had seemingly materialized there as if by magic. I was sure I hadn’t seen him when we passed only seconds before, and remembered noting how bare that very hill looked.

“That’s us.” Jude said; apparently unphased by this young man’s sudden manifestation

“I’m here to pick you up.” The black haired fellow stated frigidly. “Come with me.”

He led us down the street to a car. It was old and a mustard color. There he stopped, turned around and looked at us.

“Until you’re officially inducted into the Association of Exceptional Minds, you are not to know the location of its headquarters. For this reason you’ll be blindfolded the entire way there.” He explained—not a shred of emotion in his voice—as he pulled two handkerchiefs from his pockets.

I glanced up at Jude, trying to communicate my suspicion to him with body language, but he didn’t catch it.

“Alright.” Jude said.

He blindfolded Jude first. I watched and tried to stifle myself from smiling, while watching our escort—who couldn’t have been more than 5’7”—struggle to successfully blindfold Jude, who was around 6’2”. I don’t know if it was that he noticed me watching and trying not to smile, or if he had caught my suspicious glance to Jude, but just as he came over to blindfold me, our escort shot me an angry stare. I tried to pass it off as nothing, and simple took of my glasses and let him blindfold me without any trouble.