Intuition

This is one of the creative writing games I played with my friend Anna in July, although I cannot remember what the instructions were.

All I can remember is that we gave ourselves a time limit in which to finish in and I called my piece Intuition . . .

I whip my head round and see nothing.

Strange.

I could’ve sworn I’d seen something from the corner of my eye. And I was usually right about these things. That’s what disturbs me.

I’d always had a kind of . . . acute intuition.

I always know when bad things are about to happen.

And I don’t mean a few flukes. I mean I always know.

How else could I tell you that a woman in Paris is being screamed at by her husband in a language I have very little knowledge of and is about to be hit so hard she collapses onto the floor, blood pooling around her body?

She’ll never know her husband is sorry and will regret it for the rest of his life.

Because the doctors don’t save her.

He doesn’t see the car coming that day when he’s saying his goodbye and suddenly he’s gone too.

And this happens because I see it.

I always see it.

I see all of these things.

All day.

All night.

With never even a second of silence.

I don’t see the good things, only the bad.

And what makes it worse is that I can’t do anything to save them, any of them.

A man in China is about to have a heart attack.

I decide to walk around the corner to put my ever boiling mind to rest, for my own safety this time, and feel better once I’ve made sure I’m right.

A car is about to crash on one of the busiest roads in New York. There are no survivors.

I sigh and begin to playing with a strand of my waist-length hair as I walk towards home, trying to listen to only my feet.

Tap, tap, tap.

A woman is about to get mugged.

Tap, tap, tap.

A young boy is being bullied to the point of suicide.

Tap, tap, tap.

A young girl is being forced to do something she doesn’t want to do.

Tap, tap, tap.

A girl forgets her keys.

I stop.

I rummage through my bag.

“Oh.” I say aloud to myself. That one was me.

A murderer lurks the streets of his victim’s town.

I drop my phone so it clatters to the floor.

A psychiatric maniac wanted not only for murder but for genocide.

I bang on the door, pummelling my fist against the hard wood reinforced with plastic.

“Harley!” I screamed to my little sister. “Harley!”

Please, please, please.

He creeps up to the window and expertly slips in.

“Harley! Harley! Harley!”

He silences another voice. Another voice with that name. They must all be silenced.

“Please!” I screamed, bruising my hand so hard I could hardly bear it.

He moves on to the pretty looking white cottage.

I scream at the top of my voice. “Harley!”

But it’s too late.

He easily, so easily, gets in here too, ignoring the cries of the girl outside.

He was going to get her.

He walks into her room and gives her a frightening smile.

My sister.

I don’t think for once.

I slam myself into our French windows and slice open my forearm and the top of my leg so my whole body is burning.

He prowls towards her, her face that colour of white he lives for.

I let out the worst sound imaginable but force myself up the stairs.

Another Harley, his tenth one.

I throw myself into her room and . . .

And something miraculous happens.

Something impossible.

The vision changes.

He doesn’t kill her.

I see it in the same second that I act.

I jump towards him, using the remaining of my dwindling fire that is my energy and spirit, having lost a lot more blood than I would’ve thought possible in such a short space of time.

And he sees this other threat and he . . .

Raises his knife at me . . .

And then he cuts into her flesh –

I see myself dead.

And my visions stop.