Free The Dig by Michael Siemsen Page A

about that. Of course your boss wasn’t going to bring it up.”
    “I don’t think Jon would have thought to mention it, Matthew. He wasn’t trying to hide anything from you. Will the shot… uh, can it affect you?”
    “In quite a few ways, actually.” He rubbed his eyes as if they were just sore, then turned to her. “Think about this: up until very recently, most syringes would be cleaned and reused thousands of times. That’s just changed in our country so you can imagine what a place like—well, I’m just saying. I mean, you’re getting a shot and just think about how many kids have gotten shots with that needle and were terrified and physically hurt by it. Think about a nurse who’s been doing this for years, and the irritation she feels every time another damn screaming kid sits down in the pokey chair. All these emotions stick to an object like that. It’s gotta be in my top ten worst things to experience, no matter how fast it happens.”
    “I understand. That makes perfect sense. When was the last time you got a shot?”
    “Oh, just a couple months ago. It was no big—my doctor only uses disposables. My dentist still does it old school with everyone else, but he knows I only do disposables.”
    Tuni looked at him with genuine empathy. That is genuine bloody emotion, pure and raw. He’s the real thing. It definitely hadn’t been all roses for him, growing up. “Can I ask you a personal question? Or… well, it can wait…” she asked, caressing his shoulder from across the aisle.
    “Pssh—fire away. Believe it or not, I’m actually pretty desensitized to things. It probably doesn’t seem like it right now, but it’s really just the emotions that are forced on me that I worry about.”
    “Very well. Um, so were you born with your, um, talent? That is, did your parents see you spazzing as a baby when you were, say, wrapped in Grandmama’s blankie?”
    “Actually, I would spaz out if I had to call someone ‘Grandmama.’” He chuckled. “Sorry, no. It didn’t actually start until I was about eight years old. At least, that’s the earliest I can recall. At the time it seemed more like I was blacking out, and when I woke up I’d remember these vivid dreams about being other people. I took quite a few spills growing up. ‘Write your name on the paper, Matt’—wait, that’s not my pencil, thunk . Hold the door open for your mom, thunk . I got pretty banged up.”
    Tuni had taken off her heels. She turned toward him.
    “How did your parents react to all of it? I presume they thought it was some sort of narcolepsy.”
    “Exactly. Doctors tried out all sorts of pills on me. I was already a little hyper, and on the pills I was like an electron, shooting around the house—and, of course, touching everything.”
    “So when did you put the pieces together and realize the physical contact thing?”
    “Well, I had to stay at my cousin’s house for a week this one summer. And I slept in the top of his bunk bed. The weird thing about sleeping in a strange bed or with someone else’s blanket was that I’d be stuck, basically dreaming all this weird stuff that was always through the eyes of someone else, with all their thoughts and emotions, you know? Super surreal. Well, no one could wake me up. Eventually, my mom and dad were called and one of them pulled me out of the bed, breaking the contact, and I came out of it, groggy, looking like I woke up from a normal sleep. That happened more than a few times. My parents always said how I was the type that would fall asleep as soon as I hit the pillow. As it turned out, it depended a lot on the pillow.”
    Tuni nodded sympathetically but said nothing more than “Hmm…”
    “So the day I sort of figured it out, I was in the garage with my dad, helping him mount this bike hanger thingy. I was holding his hammer and screwdriver for him, as I had a bunch of times before, and he would ask me for one or the other of them as needed. So he’s up on