Invisible Touch

Invisible Touch

Chapter 16 ~ Invisible Touch

Ernie sat on the plane and thanked the Airline Gods for the empty seat next to him. There was at least something he wouldn't have to think about for the next couple of hours.

He was a little afraid of what had happened on the way to the airport. It had never happened before, a dream out of nowhere, about someone he hadn't seen in two days, hadn't touched in more then six months. Sure, he had talked on the phone with Kim. And in the past, for his whole life, he might get foggy, colored visions of people from telephone calls, from the radio. No, this was a real dream with vivid details he could see. This was something different.

But what was different? he kept asking himself. It must be the letter. There was no other explanation. He saw the two people hugging and kissing, and it was Kim and himself, he was sure of it! It had to be the letter. But why? It was touching, sure, but that was just a figure of speech. Kim didn't actually reach out from that sheet of paper and place her hand on him. Well, kind of, she did. He felt the love in her words, physically felt it.

Ernie tried to stay calm and not think about it. It was making him crazy. The whole thing was making him crazy, all of it. Dreams of the future, it was beyond belief. But Kim believed. She had seen it firsthand. And yet she didn't think he was a freak. And she loved him. He was so happy. He thought about her as he drifted off to sleep.

He awoke with a start and looked around, not entirely certain where he was. His nap couldn't have lasted more than an hour, he figured, but he felt as if he'd slept all night. Ernie's flight was about to land and he listened to the announcements over the intercom. Tray tables and seat backs and overhead compartments, oh my.

He checked his carry on bag. Kim's letter was still there, he saw. He couldn't wait to get home. He couldn't wait to see her and tell her how he felt. He wondered if they would talk about marriage. Maybe it was too soon, he thought. She still had two and a half years of law school ahead of her, and Ernie didn't want anything to stand in the way of her success. But would it?

The two bell signal chimed, and half of the passengers were already standing in the aisle. Ernie reached up for his suitcase and removed it carefully from the overhead. It would be pretty embarrassing to knock yourself out with falling luggage after all of the warnings they had given.

Ernie made his way through the gate area and down the long hallway to the main terminal. He thought about which way he would have to go once he got there, to get to the taxi stand.

And then he saw her. Kim was there to pick him up! What a wonderful surprise! He dropped his bags and threw his arms around her. He held her tight, just held her.

"Did you get my letter?" she asked as they hugged.

"I sure did," he said.

He looked into her eyes and saw his whole future right there.

"And I have a reply," he added.

He kissed her. And she was kissing back. A long, slow, beautiful, romantic first kiss. Neither of them wanted it to end.

"Love's first kiss," she said. "Like in fairy tails."

She had tears in her eyes, he saw. And so did he. Tears of joy.

"I love you, Kim" he told her.

"I love you, too," she replied. "Oh Ernie, I am so happy."

They finally let go of each other and headed for Kim's car.

He wasn't sure he should tell her while she was driving. He didn't want her to run off of the road. But still, it was making him crazy, this /invisible touch/ he had received from her letter.

"Kim, when's the last time I touched you? Or you touched me?" he asked.

She thought for a few seconds.

"Umm, I'm not sure," she started. "Wasn't it that time I had that psych exam last year? Remember how you changed the future and saved me from certain doom?"

The memory made her chuckle.

"I saw you this morning. I had a dream about you."

"What do you mean? How could that be?" she asked.

"And do you know who I saw in your future," he continued. "It was me. I saw us hugging and kissing. I didn't realize it was right there in the middle of the airport, but I saw that. This morning, right after I read your letter."

"The letter --" Kim said, "could that have had something to do with it?"

"That's what I've been wondering myself," Ernie said. "And... I..."

It was happening again. He knew it would -- the hugging and kissing in the airport had seen to that. It was just a matter of when, and it was now. Ernie sat back and waited for this dream about Kim to unfold.

Kim saw what was happening. She felt so bad for poor Ernie as he sat there staring into space. She kept driving and waited for him to come out of his trance.

It didn't take long.

"Kim," he said.

"Yes, Ernie."

"Let's go out to eat tonight," he said. "That little place that does the sushi appetizer."

"Oh Ernie," Kim scolded, "I was going to surprise you. I made a reservation there!"

"I know," he told her. "But don't order the steak. They're going to overcook it."

They went to a little place on Mass Ave. that specialized in grilled everything. You chose your meat -- chicken, pork, steak, shrimp, tuna, salmon, cod, halibut. You chose a sauce to go with it. Dinner was delicious. Kim ordered the tuna with a soy and horseradish sauce. It was medium rare, pink in the middle, it was delicious. Ernie's shrimp with the Szechuan sauce was one of the best things he had ever eaten, he thought.

"The amazing Ernie," Kim teased. "Once again you have altered the future."

"I know," he said, more seriously. "And it feels a little funny every time I do."

They were in a secluded booth, very private, but Ernie hushed his voice.

"I wonder," he said. "I wonder if I should be -- I don't know, doing something useful with this..."

"Power," Kim said. "We'll get you a cape and you can be..."

She made a Mighty Mouse fist and raised it to the sky.

"Super Ernie," she said. "I'm sorry. You're serious about this, I can tell."

"Well," he said. "What if I could see somebody's future and something bad was going to happen to them and I could do something about it."

"I thought you felt uncomfortable about that," she said.

"I know, and I am, and I do," he replied. "Especially about you, about us."

Ernie told Kim the story about the man on the airplane that had made so much money in the stock market.

"What if it were a loss instead of a gain?" he said.

"Yeah, I see what you mean, Ernie," she said. "But you're not God or anything. It's not really your place to protect people from their own future. Sure, I was grateful that you helped me with that exam, and you know how I like my steak rare. You're very sweet, Ernie, for wanting to help people. It's one of the many, many, many things I love about you."

Kim was intrigued by Ernie's story about Mr. 6-B, and Ernie was a little curious himself about how things were going for him. That evening they decided to go online and check the price of that stock he had done so well with. The stock had gone up another two percent yesterday. Today it was holding its value until late in the afternoon when it took a downturn.

"I hope Mr. Sixby got out on top," Kim said.

"Buy low, sell high," Ernie remarked.

He wondered what the real story was. That was a pretty nice suit, after all. Could you afford that kind of style on a salesman's pay? Maybe you could. Ernie really didn't know.

"Oh, this is so sad," Kim said.

"What is?" Ernie asked.

Kim had been reading about an explosion that had taken place at a chemical factory in Asia. Most of the workers in the factory itself had been killed. There was a densely populated neighborhood nearby and many of the residents' homes had burned. Thousands of people were forced to flee in the middle of the night, uncertain of the affects of burning chemicals and fearing further explosions.

"Oh my God," Ernie gasped.

"There was this man working at the factory," Kim reported from what she was reading, "and was there was a fire at one of the storage containers. The man was in an office building nearby and sounded an alarm. He was rushing upstairs to alert his manager when the blast occurred. It turns out he was completely unharmed because the stairway was some kind of hardened block construction. But when he got upstairs, the windows had all been blown out and most of the workers upstairs were lying there dead, including the man's boss. There was a woman calling for help and the man picked her up and was carrying her to safety when he saw a man who had lost his legs, trying to pull himself to the stairway. This man somehow managed to carry both of them all the way downstairs where they were taken away by ambulance."

"Wow, that's amazing," Ernie responded.

"And now the man can't find his family," Kim told him. "'Please help me...'" Kim began reading.

She was in tears and couldn't go on.

"Ernie, you have to read this," she said.

He read the man's story over Kim's shoulder.

"Please help me find my family. I lived in number two building across the street. Apartment number six hundred nine. That building is now in ruins, burned and destroyed. Ten stories tall is now flat earth. Nothing is there but twisted metal of stoves and bicycles sticking out. That is all I seeing. I praying that all of the souls are escaped and away from this place. Now I not finding my family. My wife at home and caring for the three children, my three baby girls. I finishing dinner and go to my shift. Am late to work and in rushing and not kissing babies goodnight, not saying goodbye to wife. My love wife, babies, missing. I searching the streets hours and hours. I give everything I have now is nothing to help finding them"

"Breaks your heart," Kim said.

She looked at Ernie. He was on the floor weeping, clutching at his chest.

"Oh my God, Ernie," she said and rushed for the phone.

"No, don't," he told her. "It's just..."

"What is it, Ernie?" she said in a panic.

"It's happening again."

He sat there in the trance like state she had seen him in before. What in the world could be happening, she wondered. What was happening again? Ernie was shaking, tears in his eyes. A minute passed and Kim was frightened.

"Ernie do you want me to..."

"He found them," Ernie said suddenly. Tears of joy, she could see, were now streaming down his face. "He found them, he found them," he kept saying.

"Ernie, are you OK?" Kim asked, very concerned.

"I don't know what's happening, Kim," he tried to explain. "But I read the man's story, and it was just like this morning when I read your letter. I was so sad for this man, and I could really feel it. And then a jolt shot through my body, like I get when I touch somebody."

"Oh my, Ernie."

"This man's story touched me, Kim. I can't explain it. Just like your letter touched me and I had the dream about you in the taxi. His words touched me somehow and then I had this vision and saw the man and he was reunited with his family. They were all safe, Kim."

"I don't know what to say, this is just incredible," Kim said.

He didn't know whether to be glad or troubled by this new development. As long as he could remember, Ernie avoided people -- avoided the touch of anyone outside of his family, lest he have a dream of that person's future. Now it was being caused by words -- emotional words, touching his heart, as if the person had touched his arm.

Ernie wondered now how long this had been happening. Dreams of strangers he had once attributed to people on the street or in shops -- maybe he had actually been touched by somebody's words, he wondered.

He and Kim had talked about his "super" powers. He imagined being able to search the Internet for stories people had written, looking for something that might give him this /invisible touch/. People wrote emotional stories all the time in blogs.

But Kim was right, he knew. He wasn't God. Who was he to interfere with people's lives.

He thought about it some more. If somebody was having difficulties with their life and wrote about it, what could Ernie possibly see in their future that he could do anything about.

Better to stick with lottery tickets and stock tips, Ernie thought. Better still to mind his own business and avoid these dreams altogether, he concluded.

© Copyright 2005