Featured image by KateNovikova
at depositphotos
From The MÉLANGE
Occasional Journal of Personal Histories
I wish I had recorded a call I got from Mandy today. I would have secured her permission of course, for ethical reasons, and I’m fairly certain she would have agreed. Furthermore, knowing she was being recorded wouldn’t have induced any hint of self-censorship; she’s vain enough to never suspect the possibility of exploitation.
Frankly, the world needs to know.
Her wings have been clipped. She wrecked the loaner car that she got after wrecking her new car, a nice late model VW largely financed by her dying father. Her DUI and storied driving record have made her the kind of insurance liability that none but grave-bound, conscience-unladen, rich alcoholic boomers could tolerate, much less afford.
Pick a diagnosis! The DSM and a traumatic brain injury in 1998 have largely absolved her of any and all accountability for intractable impulsivity and legendary bouts of psychosis. Medication helps when she takes it, but she frequently doesn’t (since she’s “not crazy”).
Alas, the last straw fell, and Mandy needed a ride.
She convinced her mother to take her to the shops for a new dress, was dropped off for a time like a middle schooler. Unimpressed with the selection of dresses, she shortly found herself at the Rockfish, a Quirky Chain Restaurant. She settled on “one” bloody mary to give her the steam to get through the burden of her situation. It seems likely that her card was declined when it came time to settle up, but her story was just as plausible:
Impatient at the agreed pickup time from her mother, she called 911 for a ride (as one does), noting the Blue’s sworn duty to serve and protect. She may have also made inadvertently racist comments to the other patrons of Rockfish; she was unclear on the details. Something about inventing “tighty whiteys, but for black people.” Someday, she assures, one of her product ideas will break through and she’ll be RICH.
Her mother was, of course, contacted, and in her saintly way genuflected deeply before the law to keep her daughter out of the system yet again, and chauffeured Miss Daisy back to their home. All of this was incidental to phone call, of course. The big question on Mandy’s mind was this: when people who don’t speak English read her thoughts, do they understand them?
They do, I said confidently.
In the astral plane, through which all known sapient telepathy is conducted, thoughts are distilled to their Platonic forms; pure ideas a priori of language. Some call it the Enochian Language of the Angels, a sort of cosmic Esperanto. In California, legislation reduces this to only very succinct vibes. Noam Chomsky makes a compelling case for the Deep Structure of language, a Universal Grammar, even if its details remain elusive. Personally, I suspect that only the most disciplined yogi could ever hope to transmit anything more than hysterical static. Typical brain waves, as far as anyone can tell, are sinusoidal animal yelps, dream dilemmas, memories rehearsed into fantasy, imported desires, looped advertising jingles, a litany of resentments, and violent perversions that would cause even the Marquis de Sade to clutch his pearls. The ruins of the tower of Babel are not the real obstacle to mind melding. Apparently we can’t even read our own minds!
Ever the astute skeptic, she found my reasoning dubious. I suppose a telepath would know better, no matter how deadpan my delivery.
She asked if I wanted to pick her up and take her out for a drink. I declined — using tried-and-true spoken English, to avoid any ambiguities.
(Who knows what vibes leaked across the astral plane, though.)
