You can read minds but it 's too noisy in the city . You move to the mountains to learn what silence was . Then you heard something deep beneath the ground . [ WP ]

Have you ever had trouble falling asleep because your mind was racing with worries about the present and hopes for the future? Sure you have. Everyone has. No one likes it, as I'm sure you well know. You try to vacate all the thoughts rummaging about in your head with some kind of single vacuum of nothingness so that you can finally fall asleep, but the renegade thoughts always come back and dangle your mind just an inch from sleep. Imagine that feeling, multiply it by... some large number. That used to be my life. Every hour of every day. 
 
 Anyone who has ever wished to be able to read minds had to be absolutely brain-dead. A brief pedantic side-note: the concept of mind reading is somewhat of a misnomer; minds are n't books to be read, nor are they movies to be watched. The idea of reading minds is beyond silly. Think about your thoughts. Are they words, images, memories? Something else? Thoughts come in many shapes and forms, but I've come to think of them as just that - thoughts. 
 
 Here's how it works - the thoughts of everyone within a given distance appear in my head just as they do in the head of the person who is thinking them. All of the thoughts. At once. I've never bothered to determine the distance at which I can think other people's thoughts. I've spent my life wishing that distance were 0. 
 
 When all of these thoughts are kicking around in my head, sleep is almost impossible. No amount of sleeping pills helped. I only managed to pass out from pure exhaustion. Fortunately, my body is sane enough to at least allow me that comfort. 
 
 You'd think that after 30 years I would have learned to manage all of these thoughts in my head. I ca n't. They're not my thoughts - I have no power over them. Frankly, I'm surprised it took me this long to get out of the city. You may take your ability to have a clear head for granted, but to me, it is the most beautiful thing in the world. I moved to a cabin in a remote part of the Rockies a few months ago, and I still woke up every day ecstatic that the only thoughts in my head were my own. 
 
 After living with other people's thoughts in your head, you come to learn that there is a certain pattern to human thinking, much as there is a certain pattern to human speech, or even in human appearance, even in a most general sense. There's something familiar about it in a way that we do n't realize until we come across something different. 
 
 Dear reader, last night I awoke to the thoughts of just that - something *different*. A loud noise awoke me, and I immediately felt the presence of something in my head. Have you ever considered the concept of other kinds of senses that we have no access to or colors that are impossible for us to see? That describes some of what I felt in my head. There was one familiar part, however. Rage, anger, and the urge to, as silly as it may sound, destroy. 
 
 The terror I felt is not something that I feel that I can describe adequately, but rest assured that no one has ever felt terror of this caliber. 
 
 I grabbed a pistol out of my night stand. The thoughts in my head began to clear up as I walked towards the door. As I slowly turned the handle, the door let out a loud creak that seemed to echo across the entire cabin. As soon as I heard the sound, the foreign thoughts in my head turned from a blurry haze into a clear image - *me*. I do n't know how I knew it was me, as these thoughts still came from senses and concepts that were beyond me, but it did n't much matter. Opening the door is the last thing I remember. 
 
 When I woke up this morning, I found myself on the floor. I opened my eyes, and immediately jumped back. My pistol was lying on the floor directly next to me, aimed at my eye. Once I stood up, I saw a torn piece of paper next to the pistol. I picked it up ( as well as the pistol ) and examined it. The torn piece of paper only had one word written on it: *easier*. It was written in what seemed like the handwriting of a child. 
 
 I do not know what happened here last night, but I am confident that the pistol is, indeed, the *easier* way out. I'm done. I ca n't do this. Before I leave this world, however, I felt dutiful to report my findings to whomever would listen. I wish you the best of luck. You're going to need it.
