The Nobody People by Bob Proehl (manga ereader TXT) 📕

shop he likes. He gets there early and sets up by the window to watch the foot traffic. It’s like looking out on an alien planet. Young people float and zip along sidewalks. They lean against unused mailboxes and gesture at each other, fingers tracing bright orange lines in the air that fade like a flashbulb afterimage on the eye. The vogue this month is for animated fabric: jackets whose patterns shift and swirl, print pants whose neon Rubik’s cubes rotate and reconfigure. Travis and Diane Weinstein, a couple on the corner at North Hoyne makes them. Diane paints the cloth and brings it to life; Travis stitches it into clothing using the skill of five generations of Eastern European tailors. He’s also precognitive over short spans of time. Avi did an interview with them for the Reader. He kept answering one question ahead. The constant motion of their tiny shop was seizure-inducing.

What Avi loves most are the older folks. Many don’t live on the block or lived there before it became impossibly cool. They grew up hiding their lights. They’ve kept their secrets so long that they can’t bring themselves to strut. Memories of a time when showing off risked bodily harm are too near for them. They watch the kids, sometimes bitterly envious, sometimes smiling at how far things have come. Avi feels allied with them. They’re tourists here, too, visitors to this strange planet. They can observe but can’t breathe the air.

The boy with the glowing light in his chest brings Avi’s coffee. He looks over Avi’s shoulder at the computer screen, the cursor blinking on the blank page.

“Writer?” he asks. It’s the first time the boy’s talked to him other than to take his order.

“Journalist,” Avi says.

The boy makes a face of mild disapproval. He taps his breastbone above the glowing hole. “Poet,” he says, expressing both pride and burden. Avi feels a tug at the base of his brain. It would be imperceptible if he hadn’t learned to expect it. The boy tries to Hivescan him, to figure out if he’s a Resonant. Coming up empty, the boy gets bored and returns to the counter.

Avi spends an hour working on a piece for the Reader about North Avenue zoning disputes. It’s the last one he’ll do for them. His editor thinks they shouldn’t hire baseline stringers to cover Resonant issues any more than they should hire white stringers to cover community meetings in predominantly black neighborhoods. He’ll be back to the Trib, where the wheels of cultural change grind slowly. The Trib wants blood, and Avi’s had his fill. They were livid when they got pipped on the Hargrave murder, but Avi’s managed to weasel back into their good books. He prefers working for the Reader even if it pays for shit. But the reasons he likes it are forcing him out.

A half beat apart, his laptop dings and his phone buzzes, reminding him of his appointment. He’s canceled three times. If he doesn’t go today, he’ll stop rescheduling. From the coffee shop, he can see the second-floor apartment where he’s supposed to be. Three times he’s watched the boy peek out to scan the street below, looking for the client who hasn’t shown. Avi packs up his laptop and notes. He places his empty mug in the bus bin and crosses the street.

The buzzer for the second-floor apartment reads RADICAL EMPATHY STUDIO and under that NORRIS/GRAY. It squawks when Avi presses it, and the approximation of a voice shouts at him, static and blur.

“Mizzer Hurts?” it says. “Elbows you win.”

The lock clicks, and Avi lets himself in. The kid holds the door open at the top of the stairs. Avi needs to stop thinking of everyone younger than him as a kid. This one has a face made handsome by the feelings and thoughts that animate it. He must look bland in photos, but in person he radiates attention and kindness.

“I’m glad you finally made it, Mr. Hirsch,” he says. “I’m Miquel. Come on in.”

They enter a small living room, the walls floor-to-ceiling with shelves of books and records. It reminds Avi of his attic, which he hasn’t been up to since the day he told Louis where to find Owen Curry. When he works from home, he sets up at the kitchen table. It’s not as if there’s anyone to bother him.

“The studio’s back here,” Miquel says. A curtain partitions the living room from a sitting room where two plush chairs sit facing. Miquel doesn’t indicate one or the other. This show of equanimity bothers Avi for some reason. He takes the one facing the curtain, and Miquel takes the one facing the windows, which are slatted with blinds.

“So Mr. Hirsch,” he says, pausing afterward.

“Avi,” says Avi.

Miquel smiles. “Why are you here?”

Avi cocks an eyebrow. “Aren’t you supposed to know?”

“I’d like to hear you tell me,” Miquel says.

“Emotional healing, right?” Avi says. “That’s what you’re selling?”

“Are you wounded?”

Avi’s hand falls to his knee, above where his leg was amputated. “Aren’t you?” he asks.

“This time is for you,” Miquel says. “You can fight if you want. It’s better than not showing up. Either way, you pay for the hour.”

“I’m here because I’m wounded,” Avi says after a pause.

Miquel leans forward, elbows on his knees. “What I’d like to do, if it’s all right with you, is come into your head a little. It’s called—”

“Reading,” Avi says. “I’ve been read before.”

Miquel nods. “What I do is a little different,” he says. “I’m not a psychic. I can’t read your thoughts. So don’t worry about keeping secrets. I’m an empathic. Which means I’m reading your emotions, if that makes any sense.”

“As much sense as anything else.”

“Exactly,” Miquel says. “It’s easier to do if you let me in.”

“So come in,” says Avi. Miquel nods and closes his eyes.

Something opens up behind Avi’s forehead. There is a feeling like warm water sluicing into his skull. His thoughts float on a rising tide, drifting and unconnected. He sees Emmeline’s