Command Me To Be Well [Completed]

18 - Short and cruel

The Council hasn't changed a bit.

But I have. So they annoy me even more.

My dear fellow Council members really like to talk. They have so many words. And I have only one. Which I'd gladly say out loud if I had my way.

Shut up.

But, obviously, I can't. Democracy is taken seriously here in the main decision-making body of the Post-Earth, there are cameras everywhere, stuck into our faces. And there's a live broadcast of our each and every session, so that people out there can follow each and every word we utter.

So I replace it with other words. Some very creative ones. Which sound impeccably polite, but mean the same.

I got a feeling. My dear fellow Council members don't like me. Still, they elected me as the president of the Post-Earth.

Which, if we resort to logical interpretation, means that I'm the president of something that takes place after the Earth. Cool, right? In the draft, it was Post-war Earth. But the Council found it too long and depressing. Why should we add war, something we want to forget? When we have the possibility to create a name which sounds as if the world itself has ended, not the war? Never mind. It's a Council thing.

So I'm Madame President now. It sucks. I can't even tell them to shut up anymore. But it was kind of inevitable. I'm not only the last Seer, but I'm also a proper war hero.

Rebuilding takes all my time. In a literal sense of the word. I hardly sleep at all. My skills are needed everywhere.

Emotional mapping makes everything easier. Because it has many uses again. In psychology. In social security. In medicine. In crime prevention. Even in agriculture.

Now we have medicine again. The war, and the underground form of living we practiced, gave place to the evolution of some very potent new plagues, as well as to the resurrection of some old ones. We have to act, and we have to act fast if we don't want to lose even more people to an epidemic than we did to the Wasps. Emotional swings and melancholy are earlier sings of an infection than fever, everybody knows that. So I monitor people a lot, trying to find effective methods for the quarantine.

We also have social security. And agriculture. But we have so few farm animals surviving, that, in a way, they are more precious than humans.

There is another problem with them. Farm animals are not like stupid humans, fucking around like there's no tomorrow, even when they feel bad, or even on their last day before they die. No. They need to be calm and somewhat happy to mate. So I also get in an unexpectedly close acquaintance with the deepest feelings of cows, horses and other livestock as part of my job. It's a nice change, so I can't complain. They are much lovelier than people.

We also have psychology and crime prevention, of course. These are hard times, and many try to make a living out of taking what belongs to someone else. Unless they have the illusion of an ever-watching, invisible eye over them. That would be me. The Big Brother. Of course, I have neither the time nor the will to monitor everyone. But they think that I could if I wanted to. And it's enough.

So yeah. Emotional mapping has many uses in times of peace. And, slowly but surely, we all try to forget about the one use it had in the near past. The one that made me famous. The one that killed off all the other girls born with the gift, making me the one and only Seer.

Emotional mapping of the enemy.

We don't have military now. We are all one world. Building our future together. What else can a girl dream of?

Oh, and I'm popular. I'm the most popular person in the Post-Earth, probably. Not because of the enormous amount of work I do every day. Obviously not. People don't understand half of it. And I don't expect them to understand it either.

It's because I'm funny. I make fun of myself and my fellow Council members. I'm the comic relief in between the boring and serious affairs the Council deals with. And people like it. I like it too. I seriously need to let the steam out now and then before I go catatonic, listening to the constant blabbering of the conservatives and their constipated chairman. So it's also part of my long term health protection plans, in a way.

Still, I can't wait for the nights. I nearly faint when I finally stumble to my bed. But being a Seer is a responsibility. In more ways than one. I'm also responsible for the survival of my vocation. There will be other girls, sooner or later, born with the gift. And I'll be the only one who can teach them how to be an Empath. And how to become a Seer in the case of an extreme emergency. I hope for them, and for myself, that it won't be necessary ever again.

Only now, in the peace, I notice in its entirety how insane it was what I did in the war. It's just a matter of mere luck that I'm here and not in a mental asylum or six feet under. Now I'm using my skills on my terms. And I see the difference. It's safe now. I'm safe. I don't need an anchor anymore.

Sometimes, though, I feel an overwhelming urge to find him amongst all the dots on the map. Sometimes I just can't keep myself from wondering how he feels at the moment.

But I never look. Being the last one of my kind makes it even more impossible than ever. I'm also responsible for keeping the tradition intact.

Okay, it's a lie. A lie I tell myself, but even I fail to believe it.

Truth is, I don't give a shit about the Seer's credo. I never did. I'm really not that good at following rules, just like he pointed out once. And he also guessed right, back then, when he asked me why I couldn't take a look at his feelings.

I didn't simply see the consequences of breaking the rule. I also felt it once.

It happened a long time ago, when I was too young to know better. So yes, I have a first-hand experience of what comes after you use your skills for personal aims. You look once, just to know it. But that one try makes the levee break. You look a second time, just to keep updated. Then again, just to be sure. Then again, to avoid a fight between you and him. Just a little peek, to know how to make him happy. And then, one day soon, you realize that you're seeing him all the time.

For self-assurance. For control. For fun. And suddenly he's not a separate person anymore. He's just a part of you. Like an excess limb. You can predict his every move. And then, when you face the first problem between you two, you stop being a simple observer. You don't simply predict. You also move him. Like a part of your own body. Pressing his buttons. Manipulating him, in a way no one else could.

And it ruins everything.

The Seer's credo. It's so short, yet so cruel.

And so true.

That's what I'm going to tell the girls born to be an Empath.

Besides, I know that he's still alive and improving. I receive a daily report from the hospital too. And, while I hate myself a bit for it, his name is the very first thing I look up every time. So I know the exact date when he's able to sit up. And when he leaves the intensive care, to start rehabilitation.

I also know that he'll never be the same. But none of us will.

I also feel his presence, to an extent. Or it's just my imagination. I don't really sense his light, obviously, it's just the fact that I still can't unsee it. But his position always burns on the perimeter of my mind, just a millimeter away from the boundaries of my mental map. But a millimeter is enough. In reality, it means an infinite distance between us. A wasteland, more dangerous than a minefield, and dryer than the Sahara when you have to cross it without any water.

Timur was kinda right. To know is worse than to not know.