KRAKLBOOOOOOM. The weather has been relentless tonight, January thought, and was even louder since the window had been broken. The weather wasn’t normally this bad, January thought, although the weather in Riverbrook never really died down for more than a few minutes at a time. These were the minutes that he treasured the most.

The curtains swayed violently in the wind. The storm was particularly forceful at that moment. January probably wouldn’t be able to step outside for a while (or enjoy it, at least). It wasn’t a necessity for him to be able to do so, but it really helped alleviate his mental state.

Suddenly, the pupils flew back into January’s head. He was entering the double vision state. “Ira,” he smiled. His delighted grimace soon faded, however, as he furrowed his brow in disbelief. “She’s at the doorstep.”

DING-DOOOONG. January nearly hit the ceiling when he heard his real-life doorbell chime. The full body shock forced his double vision to temporarily subside. He shook his head as he regained full consciousness and reluctantly made his way to the door. Waiting for him at his doorstep was, indeed, Ira. She seemed just as shocked to see him as he was to see her.

A single word was barely able to escape his lips. “You’re…”

“Ira,” she blushed. “Ira Knotwood. It’s nice to finally meet you, January.” At first he was somewhat disturbed that she knew his name, but quickly realized that she probably knew a lot more about him than he knew about her. “I thought I’d never find you.”

“Why are you here? How did you find me?” asked January; a perfectly reasonable series of questions to ask a stranger from his daydreams who had suddenly appeared on his doorstep. He wondered if he was imagining the whole thing.

“I came here for answers. I want to know if you’re like me.”

“Like you?” January had no idea what she was talking about. She looked a lot clearer in reality than she had in his visions. She was very tall, over six feet, and skinny. She was a bit older than January, probably in her mid- twenties. Her long, blonde hair swayed in the wind.

“Wow, it’s really cold in here,” she huffed, rubbing her shoulders to help keep warm.

“Sorry, I kind of broke the window,” January sighed. He offered her a blanket, but she declined. He still had no idea why she was there in the first place, so he spoke up. “You said you wanted to know if you were like me. What exactly do you mean?”

Ira pulled a small pocketbook from the front pocket of her cargo pants. She opened it into her palm and firmly grasped a page. She closed her eyes; bit her bottom lip, and RIIPSCH. She pulled a page out. To January’s surprise, it turned into a bead of water, suspended in the air. Eyes still closed, Ira continued concentrating her thoughts.

Dumbfounded, January could do nothing other than look into the projection in the water. Shaken, he saw Ira sitting in a strange room on a strange-looking green sofa. The place was like the inside of a log cabin overlooking a gigantic river, but there were distinct suburbs viewable through the cabin’s huge windows. The distant buildings seemed to be peering out from the other side of the sparkling river along the horizon. It was a cloudy evening and the sun was setting. Splotches of purple and orange decorated the skyline like confetti.

“It’s beautiful,” said January. It’s the only thing that he could say. He was too deeply in a trance to be able to muster anything particularly meaningful at that moment.

“Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It’s where I’ve lived my entire life.”

A few seconds later, January finally responded. “Harrisburg? The name sounds familiar, but I don’t know much about it. It’s simply breathtaking.” January stopped and thought for a moment, no longer sidetracked by the gorgeous view. “All right, Ira. I’m afraid you’ve got some explaining to do.”

“Of course, Janny.” She closed the book with a plip and the tears slowly streamed back into her eyes.

“Janny?” he asked, laughingly.

“Well, sure. I mean, January is kind of a long name. I’d assumed you’d have claimed Janny or Jan or something as your nickname by now. Does everyone just call you January? That’s got to be a strain on the tongue eventually. I mean, four syllables! That’s a mouthful!” Ira looked at January, head cocked to one side, evidently expecting some sort of response.

“Uh, sure.” January sighed. “So, I’d greatly appreciate if you would enlighten me about the water and the mental projection.”

“Oh,” said Ira with a distinctly melancholy undertone. “I was hoping you would be the one to tell me more about these things.” She was noticeably saddened.

January looked surprised. He had assumed that she was some kind of expert robot from the future or something of that nature. Shortly afterward, he realized that he had simply watched far too much television (before it became a problem, of course). “You seemed to have control over what appeared on the water droplets. You knew you were going to rip out the pages and that they were going to turn into lenses for your mental images.”

It was hard for January to finish his sentence. Ira was chuckling loudly to herself. January started to wonder what could possibly be that hilarious when she cleared it all up: “It’s not water. They’re tears. The pages don’t turn into them; the tears are drained from your eyes.” I guess ignorance is bliss, thought January.

“Come to think of it, my eyes did hurt when this happened to me, and I later found the pages scattered around my den. You really didn’t need to insult me by laughing about it, though”, January scowled. “I think you could cut me some slack; I mean, pieces of paper seemed to turn into water before my eyes.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Ira yawned. January silently asked himself if he was really that boring. “All you really have to do is concentrate real hard and you’ll be able to control what vision you see. I keep all my visions in a file cabinet in my physical mental. All you have to do is play around with it a bit.”

“Like…” but January stopped. What had she just said? “Physical mental? What does that mean, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Hmm. Have you read Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher?” January shook his head. “Well, it’s real hard to explain, but… do you have a certain place you go in your mind to think thoughts, to dream about people and goings-on in your life?”

At first, January had no idea in the world what she was talking about. A moment later, it hit him so hard that his face suddenly jumped. “Aha!” shouted Ira. “I knew it! Everyone has one, whether they know it or not! It’s hard-wired into your mind!”

January would easily admit that he wasn’t entirely sure what she was talking about, but was willing to take a stab at it anyway. “When I meditate or am otherwise at peace with myself, I sometimes visit a place in my mind. It’s a koi pond. Each fish somehow resembles a person I know, and if I pet them, a small scroll containing information about the person awaits me in the fish’s mouth. It’s a beautiful pond with a huge waterfall behind it. The entire area is surrounded in forestry with a perpetual rainbow. The entire area is shrouded in a thin layer of mist, and cold air never stops blowing.”

She went wide-eyed. Apparently we were on the same page, January thought. “Yours is so awesome! Mine is boring compared to yours. I need to visit yours soon!” I was about to ask her how that was even conceivable when she butted in.

“In mine,” she said, “Everything is red. Or at least, everything is some shade of red. Some things are black and white, but most everything is red. I don’t know why; red isn’t even my favorite color. Anyway, I drive a small, dark red car (a Mini Cooper, I think?) anywhere I want.” January could sense a great amount of joy in her voice. “The whole area looks like a huge red shopping complex with a jungle all around it. There’s a huge alley containing mannequins of all the people I can think of, and many of my favorite fictional characters. The farther I drive down the road, the more obscure the person. Fictional characters by default are way on the end.” She pointed to her right, signifying the alley.

This was very interesting to January. He wanted to ask her a million questions at once. How do you know about this? How can we meet in this mental realm? Is there something bigger? For now, however, he wanted to set it all aside.

“Can we talk about something more …normal, for a bit?” January asked with conflicting emotions.

Slightly peeved, Ira nodded. January decided to start it off. “So, how did you find out where I live?”

“Well, I’ve obviously been having visions, too. I’ve always seen you way more than I’ve seen anyone else, though. It’s hard to find out peoples’ names, but yours came naturally to me. I just felt that your name was January. Weird, huh?”

“Not as weird as you’d think. I knew your name was Ira long before you came to my door,” said January.

“I assumed as much. Anyway,” said Ira, “I’ve seen you in your front yard many times before. You seem to have a lot of fun when it stops raining. You go out there every chance you get, don’t you? The street address plastered on the front of your apartment complex is usually pretty clear in my mind. I searched the internet for your address and the only matching one was here in Riverbrook.”

“Interesting. I’m glad you came to see me, but I’m even gladder that I don’t freak you out. Apparently I’m a pretty creepy guy,” said January, emotionlessly.

“I don’t think you’re creepy. I actually think you’re kind of cute,” Ira chuckled with a high pitched squeak. January blushed a little and hurriedly changed the subject.

“So, why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

“Well, Janny, like I said, I was born and raised in Harrisburg. I worked as a manager at a local fast food joint for years. I was married, but recently got divorced.” Her voice again became sadder in tone. January wondered if all women were emotional water fountains like Ira was.

“I’m really sorry to hear that,” said January in a pseudo-affectionate voice. At that point, Ira looked like she was going to cry, so of course it had become, once again, January’s duty to change the subject. But before he could, Ira spoke up again.

“It’s okay, really. I just don’t think it was my fault. I don’t think I had control over myself.”

This struck a deep chord with January. It made him think back to his old apartment burning down, and how he thought that he did it, but had no idea why or how. Could this be somehow related? There’s only one way to find out, he thought.

“I know it’s been rough for you, but for my sake, could you please describe what happened?” he carefully inquired. “I think that your situation may be somewhat paralleled to something that happened to me.”

“What do you mean, Janny?”

“Around three years ago, I was living in an apartment by myself and…” but Ira was determined not to let him finish his sentence.

“But you don’t even look fit to live by yourself now! You’re just a child!” To this, January sort of grumbled to himself.

“Actually, Ira, I was 16 when I lived by myself. Since my father had abandoned me and I didn’t know for sure where he was located, I turned myself into the police. At first, they were just going to throw me into the local adoption agency. Eventually, however, after a lot of begging and a little bribery, they saw me fit enough as a minor to live on my own and a judge declared me legally emancipated.”

“Oh,” said Ira, apparently wishing she hadn’t brought it up.

“As I was saying,” January continued, “I lived by myself in my old apartment. I didn’t have any powers. I didn’t have any kind of mental deficiency. I had no idea any of this was going to happen. One morning, I woke up on the lawn with my apartment in ruins, a dead dog lying next to me and a slew of law enforcement vehicles littering the immediate neighborhood.”

“What was your dog’s name?” asked Ira. January thought that was a particularly strange question to ask.

“I don’t think it was my dog. I mean, I sort of remember seeing him before, but…” He was cut off.

Ira’s voice grew more forceful and determined. “He was your dog. Think about it. What was his name?”

“How do you know this?” asked January, skeptical as to how Ira could be so sure about it, and why such a trivial detail should matter at all.

“Directly before my husband and I were divorced, I didn’t see anything coming either. I already knew about my powers, but I wanted to keep them from him. He would’ve sold me as a science experiment or something.”

“That’s pretty awful.” Looking down in an attempt to express sympathy toward Ira, January pondered how truly interesting women were. Do they normally let their spouses walk all over them? Why would they put up with it, much less see nothing wrong with it? At least I’m learning a lot about women, thought January.

“I was just wondering what the name of your dog was,” said Ira, “Because the same thing happened to my cat.” Confused, January beckoned for her to continue. “My cat, whose name I couldn’t remember…”

“What?” asked January, genuinely curious.

A look of enormous distress suddenly plagued Ira’s face. “I... I found him one morning, lying next to me, torn in half,” Ira bawled. “I killed my baby Mittens and I didn’t even remember his name!” Ira was hysterical. January thought to himself, stupefied. Why were the situations so similar? He wanted to ask her if anything had burned down, but decided it was best to let her cry for a while.

Once again, the storm had died down. Looking outside the shattered window, sparkling in the moonlight, January instantly filled with a carefree ecstasy. He motioned for Ira to follow him as he made a mad dash to the front door. He sprung into the air, arms flailing, as he absorbed the icy air around him. Ira stood learning against the door frame with a half-smile. She thought he was the cutest thing ever.

With a long sigh of happiness, January turned back around and looked at Ira. “Sorry,” he stated.

Ira explained that he didn’t need to be sorry and that she thought it was cute. He turned beet red and resumed his frolicking, keeping his red cheeks out of her sight.

Immediately, it began pouring again. They both hastily ran back inside. January closed and locked the door. “That was fun!” exclaimed Ira. I never realized that just appreciating the weather could be so much fun.” Ira seemed ecstatic. Her emotions had really been all over the place that evening, thought January.

January decided he wanted to talk more about the powers. “So that’s all you know about the powers; only how to control your visions?” January wondered if she knew anything else, or if there were any other powers. Suddenly, January’s television flickered on. As it warmed up, an image of his face appeared on the dusty old screen. Unsurprised, January was visually curious how Ira could control it. “How did you turn it on just now?”

“I used the remote,” she said with a distinct lack of emotion. Sure enough, she was clutching the television’s remote control. January felt like an idiot, so he quickly responded.

“How did you know what you were projecting, and where and how long you were projecting it?”

“Well,” said Ira, “It really isn’t anything particularly difficult. All you have to do is imagine it. Concentrate as hard as you can and imagine that you’re projecting your thoughts onto the TV screen. If you can concentrate hard enough, it eventually becomes second nature. One time I was walking down the street, and without even realizing it, I had projected my thoughts into an electronics store with a bunch of TVs in the window. But I noticed that other people couldn’t see it. They just walked along, ignoring the oversized words DIVORCE, JACOB, LOVE, MITTENS, FUTURE being randomly thrown all over the screens. Whatever this is, only we can see it. Maybe it’s a gift from God.”

“Which one?” asked January, with a smirk.

“There’s only one God, Janny,” said Ira, sternly. January assumed she was a Christian, but didn’t care to press her about it. Instead, he began wondering. Why were Ira and I able to contact each other? Why do we have similar abilities and experiences? Are there others like us? He decided to think out loud.

“Have you ever met anyone else like us?”

Ira replied by shaking her head. “January, how would you feel about moving in with me?” Naturally, this came as a shock to him. He hadn’t even met this girl an hour ago, and now she apparently wanted to move in with him.

“Uh…” Yet again, January was unable to speak coherently, so he just waited for her to explain herself.

“I was banished from Harrisburg. I can’t go back,” sighed Ira. “I have a lot of money, though. I inherited my dad’s fortune. He was an oil tycoon. Don’t worry, I’ll pay for everything.”

“I don’t know what to say. I mean, we just…”

Ira chimed in: “But we’ve been able to see each other for years. It’s like we’ve known each other this whole time. I told you, I’ll pay for everything. And by the looks of your apartment, you shouldn’t mind too much to have financial security. No offense, of course.”

She had him in a bind. He was dead broke, and the last few bucks he had were being drained fast. Since he didn’t trust any kind of employer, he was essentially forced to take her up on the offer.

A few days later, as the moving van was making its way to January’s new home on the north side of Riverbrook, he thought about something Ira had said when she first visited him.

“Why were you banished from Harrisburg?” January asked.

Ira looked down for a second or two, but since she was driving, was forced to look back up. January didn’t have a driver’s license anymore. It wouldn’t have done him much good, anyway, since his car had been repossessed after his apartment had burned down. Ira struggled to keep from crying. “The same day I woke up and found my dead cat, my husband divorced me. I had no idea why. It was so sudden. We were so in love with each other. But there it was; he laid it to me straight. He handed me divorce papers and walked out the door.”

“That doesn’t explain why you were banished,” replied January.

“Janny, please. Let me talk.” January appeared sorrowful that he had interrupted. “I was friends with the mayor of Harrisburg. We always did things together. Golfing, bowling, you name it. The same day, I had apparently burnt down the Mayor’s office. It was all over the news for a week. Arsonist Torches Mayor’s Office… No Known Motive. I was immediately thrown into jail, but I could afford the bail. Since I was let off so easily, they decided to banish me from Harrisburg forever.”

After consoling Ira and unmoved by the similarity, January thought back to the day his life was ruined. He never wanted that to happen again. He took the detached emergency button from his pocket and pressed it.

From what Dr. Michaels had told him, he knew the button could be triangulated from the waves it emits on whatever frequency it is that the emergency center picked up. He knew that no matter where he went, they could always find him to give him more medicine or help him with anything that he may have possibly needed help with. It was very reassuring to him.

Soon, they arrived at their new home. It was a beautiful two-story house in a gorgeous suburban neighborhood. Of course, it was certainly a nice deviation from what January was used to. A half-smile quickly sprang onto January’s face as he looked into his new driveway and noticed a dark red Mini Cooper.