The Antenna

Jon Thomas always hated math, but then one day he didn't.

It was odd. Never, in his whole life, did he find enjoyment in solving a

math problem. It became connected to everything else that was wrong for him. All the

unpleasant moments of his life concerning anything at all came flooding back during

math.

Then one day, in third hr eleventh grade algebra on a monday, it clicked.

There was a quiz. As it was being handed out Jon felt this strange excitement. For

what, he didn't know. It was just there resting at the bottom of his mind. In fact, he

barely noticed it until he looked at the quiz itself. Every question looked as if it was

begging to be solved; almost like an adventure sitting there waiting. Energized, he

picked up his pencil and went to work. All the methods he had learned or barely

learned suddenly made perfect sense.

Wrapping up, he handed it in to Mr. Hendricks, the teacher he suddenly no

longer wished death upon. Mr. Hendricks took the paper without looking up at Jon.

He hated Jon for hating math and did not forgive easily.

Jon sat back down at his desk, soaking in his new enthusiasm. He picked up

his math book and started flipping through it.

Jon didn't think anything of it at the time, but a new girl was in class that day.

Her family had moved in over the weekend. Her name was Nicole.

Nicole was not happy at all to be in algebra class. She didn't know Mr.

Hendricks, but she definitely didn't like him. He had this look to him that she couldn't

stand and made her skin crawl. It was in his eyes, she thought. Smug and

condescending. During the quiz she couldn't concentrate. A dark cloud hung over

this class, and although she felt fine about the first two class periods, she now was

missing her old friends and wished desperately that her family hadn't moved here.

The only odd thing was that Nicole absolutely loved math; she just hated

it today.

Over the next few days, things got better for Nicole. She enjoyed most of

her other classes, and the didn't hate math outside of that classroom. She

decided it must be the room. There must be something wrong with it.

Even so however, the unpleasantness got substantially weaker every day. By

Thursday it was almost completely gone and she was glad to be there for the first

time. She even liked Mr. Hendricks and decided he wasn't smug or condescending.

He just got annoyed easily is all.

Jon had close to the same experience. So close in fact that he had no clue at

all of what was happening to him. The next day in class, he hated math again, but now

it was accompanied with a strange nervousness of his surroundings. It got weaker

and disappeared, too, only when it did, he wasn't back to normal. For the second

time now, he was happy to be there, and liked Mr. Hendricks even though he got

annoyed easily.

Jon didn't tell any of his friends about it because he didn't think any of them

would find it interesting. None of them cared about math.

Nicole didn't have any friends yet, but she did tell her dad about it, who wasn't

listening.

Nicole's mind wandered to odd places more and more in class. By Friday of

that first week, her thoughts were interrupting themselves constantly with other thoughts

about things she didn't know she knew or cared about. She would be enjoying a

memory of going to the beach last summer, and suddenly she would be wondering

how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop, which was from an old

commercial she'd never seen. She didn't know that, though. It was just a thought

to her.

On that Friday of that first week, which Mr. Hendricks had made a study

hour, Jon was daydreaming about stuff from his childhood. He didn't stay on that too

long though, because his thoughts turned back to his current class subject. He had

forgotten his pen the the last class, and needed one to finish this homework just

handed out. Normally, he would wait until the last minute, but thanks to his new

enthusiasm, he tended to put it off only a little.

Meanwhile, Nicole was riding the wave of the alien emotions and thoughts

that was crashing against her mind. She was quite aware of them now, and had

decided to try not to think her own thoughts so she could listen to the other

ones better. Something about a pen now, she was able to make out. Not as

interesting as commercials she'd never seen, but still something. "I need to borrow

a pen from somebody." said her other mind clearly. Her eyes glanced down to her

desk. A pen sitting right there. She wondered how you might lend a pen to an

intangible stream of thoughts.

After a few seconds, Jon turned to Nicole, who was sitting right behind him

but he never got the question out.

What happened next can be compared to two mirrors suddenly being turned

to face one another, with a thought standing in between.

As was said, Jon never spoke, but "Do you have a pen I can use?" shot into

her head like a bullet. Silent to everyone else, it was the loudest noise she'd ever

heard in her life. Her surprise, along with the question itself, was instantly shot right

back into Jon's head, stunning him. The thought continued rocketing back and forth

between the two minds shrinking slightly per rotation until it was gone, a few

seconds later. The surprise was still there, though.

"Uh.." said Jon.

A new thought was in Jons head now, this one not quite as intense. It said,

"Hey, can you hear this?"

"Yeah." Jon said twice, once as a thought, and once aloud, in quick

succesion.

Nicole picked up the pen with her thumb and forefinger and gestured it

toward him cautiously, and Jon accepted it.

"I can't remember why I wanted this." Said Jon, as a thought and aloud. From

the two modes of communication the sentence overlapped itself, making it sound

garbled.

"You don't have to say it aloud." Said Nicole, also in both modes, "because

it makes it sound like this."

"Oh." thought Jon.

"There you go." Thought Nicole.

Jon had gotten used to the volume of the voice he was receiving, which was

all-encompassingly loud. It wasn't painful, though. Going straight to his brain, his

eardrums weren't being put at risk. He suddenly realized again how loud it was and

turned to face forward in his desk.

"Still hear me?" Thought Jon.

"Of course I can." A thought was returned, about half as loud as before.

"Um..." Thought Jon. He had hit a block. Of course this was amazing. The

very idea that it could happen was mind boggling, and it was happening to him. But

what now? What would someone do with the ability to speak to one other person

silently? The grandeur was starting to slip away.

Nicole was reading all of this, but she didn't want to interrupt his thought

process.

"What can we do with this?" asked Jon as a question, clearly directed at her.

"Actually, I don't care." realized Nicole. She was happy. On top of discovering

an impossible talent, she was making a real connection with somebody. Having moved

to a new place where she didn't know anybody that well, it was good timing. She had

no siblings, and couldn't confide in her dad. He didn't understand her. Not really. Mom

did, but mom wasn't around anymore.

"Who's that?" thought Jon.

"Who?" returned Nicole.

"It's fuzzy, but you're thinking of somebody and it's making you sad. Is it your

mom?"

"Wow". She regained her composure. "Yeah, she died. About a year ago. Yeah."

"Is it okay that I read that?"

"Sure."

Jon tried to think of something really sad that happened to him he could share,

but nothing that seemed right came to mind; he had no close dead relatives. His dog, maybe?

That didn't really count. His brother, Tim, was in the army so Jon was kinda worried

about him, but Tim was fine at the moment.

Finally, Jon gave up and thought "Sorry to hear that."

"Thanks." thought Nicole. She had read the whole inner dialogue and didn't mind

that he wouldn't purposely send over a sad memory of his. The effort alone made her

feel good.