When a Mind-Reader Retires

(a short story)

Unlike what most people assumed, he wasn’t glad to have silence when he retired and stopped reading minds.

How’s retirement treating you? His old students, now professors themselves, would ask at the start of emails. He would try to imagine what they could be doing—at a grocery store, or on campus, or at the zoo with their children. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? He couldn’t know. Back in the day, he would have instantly known where they were and what they were doing and how they were feeling, even if he didn’t want to know.

How’s retirement treating you?

It’s peaceful, he usually answered. Quiet.

I bet, they would respond, with all the certainty of someone who has never had the ability to read the entire world’s thoughts.

These days, demoted to life as a regular old man with no telepathy and therefore no duty to save the world, he habitually went to see sports games—little league, soccer games, sports bars, whatever. Everyone seemed to assume that he was someone’s grandpa. Really, all he wanted to do was listen to everyone else yelling. He missed that. There are no secrets when people are yelling at a game. It was the closest he could get to what it used to sound like to stand in the middle of a crowded city street with people in suits silently walking around in traffic.

People would assume that the world’s thoughts were too loud, he grumbled to himself, when really it had been more of a comforting hum in the background. Nowadays, people couldn’t stand going to a grocery store if it wasn’t run by robots. Or maybe they were afraid of crowds because of the news. Or maybe it was social anxiety. At one point, he had known it was all of the above; now, a year into retirement, he guessed he couldn’t really be sure anymore. (Except, he kept noticing, all of the above problems were easily solved if one could read everyone else’s minds).

He was ruminating on these thoughts at the gas station one evening—not because he actually needed the fuel, but his knees hurt too much to walk anywhere crowded and he didn’t want to dress up for any kind of sit-down establishment. So, after topping off his tank, he sat and listened to the conversation going on just outside the convenience store, the irritable drivers honking at each other at the roundabout, the girl on her phone with a boyfriend while filling the tank right under the NO PHONES sticker.

He was of half a mind to just sit there, windows rolled down, tank full, dispenser screen blinking READY FOR SERVICE, until every driver in a five-mile radius surrounded him honking and yelling and it finally felt like he was fucking there.

“Excuse me?”

He blinked. The girl across from him had looped around the dispenser, phone still at her ear, card in her hand. She looked at him with a mix of awkwardness and expectation.

The funny thing about reading minds is that people never think excuse me or beg your pardon in their heads. They often don’t even realize that they say it. So it was a little jarring—and offered him no information. He wondered, briefly, why a young lady would approach a man on his own at a gas station, especially with the world being the way it was; it wasn’t late at night exactly, but criminals can be anywhere, and her debit card dangled awfully loose in her well-manicured hand.

Oh, right, he realized, catching a glimpse of himself reflected on the windshield glass. He was an old, bald man staring into space with a visible case of arthritis on the wheel; she was approaching a lonely old grandpa, not a lone wolf with superpowers.

“Hello,” he replied, because what else could he say? Hoped his smile masked his self-deprecating amusement.

“I’m so sorry, but did your card work? It’s not taking mine.”

Sorry was another word that either didn’t make it into someone’s thoughts at all or blasted non-stop like a siren, drowning out every other thought. He wondered which one of those this girl was experiencing. The phone was still at her ear. She looked college-aged, maybe a little older. Inside the convenience store, the gas station attendant was in a heated argument with someone over beer prices—not really a conversation she wanted to be a part of.

“Mine worked,” he told her, but got out of his car nonetheless, following her to the other side. “Maybe it’s the chip reader.”

“I tried it both ways,” she said, and did so in front of him. The dispenser shot out some kind of error message.

He peered at the little screen and tried a few buttons. He wasn’t going to pretend he was some kind of tech guy, although he had read a lot of IT people’s minds over the years—some of it had to have rubbed off on him. Next to him, the girl was talking in a terse, low voice, clearly meant for the person on the other end of the phone.

“Look, if you didn’t want me leaving you home alone, you could have just come with; it’s your car! …Yeah and that’s the problem. Don’t you have that interview? …Well look it up—pretty sure it’s at least a twenty minute drive.”

The little screen had reset. He grimaced and the girl tried her card again. Denied. She cursed. Again, into the phone: “Did you use my card for something?” Then, defeated, she fell back against the car door. “Oh my God. You know what? Figure out your own gas.”

She hung up and looked at him with a grimace. “I’m sorry. I guess my boyfriend overdrafted the account. I’ll figure it out.”

“I can pay, don’t worry.”

She gave him a look. “I’m not some kind of scammer.”

At his age, maybe he would be a good scam victim to target. It was a sobering thought. “I think I’m a pretty good judge of character,” he said. Although maybe that was twisted by the fact that up until recently, no one had ever been capable of lying to him.

He pressed his card against the chip reader. It went through.

She looked torn. Pressed the button for the gas type. Stared at the screen again. “I don’t even need this; it’s my boyfriend’s car.” Then, more quietly. “I really thought the issue was with the reader.”

“I think the issue is with the boyfriend.”

It was maybe a bit too sincere of a thing to say, but she snorted. “It’s like you read my mind.”

He gestured towards the dispenser. “Get the gas, drive yourself somewhere else instead. And maybe close that bank account.”

She looked at him with the kind of despair most people only reserve for very dear friends—or complete strangers. “I had plans for that money. Traveling, meeting new people. Spending more time in the world, you know?” She sighed. “People suck.”

“Make him pay you back, then start doing those things. There’s plenty of good people out there.”

“Are there?” she asked doubtfully.

He smiled. “I’m sure of it.” And oh, how he missed hearing the hum of all their thoughts in his head—even if it came with all the other nonsense.

She took a deep breath, nodded, and put gas in the car. “Are you a therapist?”

“A teacher. Retired.”

She was smiling as she put the nozzle back on its hook. “You should come to my salon on Main Street; talk some of the girls out of their bad relationships.” She got into the car. “Or talk my soon-to-be ex into paying me back.”

“Maybe I will,” he replied, and she drove away with a grin.

The attendant inside the convenience store was no longer in an argument; it sounded like he and his customers had actually gone to the same school, and the high prices were suddenly forgiven. In the distance, a burst of laughter from someone’s rooftop. He couldn’t tell what they were saying, but he got the gist.

“What the hell, man!” yelled a driver who had just pulled in behind the car with the open doors and open windows, whose previously-telepathic owner was just gazing into space. “You’re not the only one here, you know!”

I know, he thought with a bit of a chuckle as he got back into his car. Isn’t it great?