When I was in my twenties, a co-worker told me she had gone to a psychic. Naturally, I was interested. I’d been to a few before. A couple who seemed legitimate. A few others who seemed like quacks. But this one, my friend told me, was different.
“She’s really good. I totally believe her.”
“Good,” I said. As fascinated as I am, I always take things like this with a grain of salt.
“She mentioned you by name,” my friend continued.
That really got my attention. “What? My name?”
My friend nodded. “Yeah. She said, ‘Do you know someone named Silver?’ I said yeah. She said, ‘Tell her to be careful with her eyes.’”
I hesitated. “My eyes?” My eyes have never given me trouble, except that I wear glasses—and at the time, I had to have my prescription changed frequently because they kept getting worse. Not unusual, my doctor had told me. It would level out as I got older. Which was true. “How do you know she meant me?”
“You’re the only Silver I know.”
“Huh.”
“She also said, ‘Tell her to be very careful driving.’”
“No way. Really?”
“Yeah. I think she gave me more information about you than she did about me.”
Somehow, I felt guilty about that. “Sorry.”
“Well, it wasn’t so bad. I think she’s really good. I’m going to go again.”
Some time had passed--two or three weeks, maybe—and I’d forgotten all about the psychic lady my friend had visited. It was early on a Saturday evening, and I was driving to a local pizza place to pick up a slice for dinner. We lived out in the country, and the roads were long and straight, and the speed limit was a typical 55 mph. and I tended to drive with a lead foot.
About a quarter mile ahead of me, there was another car. I saw it hit its brake lights briefly and then move on. As I approached the spot where the car had slowed down, I hit the brakes, hard. Right there, almost in the middle of the road, stood a small toddler boy. His parents were nowhere in sight. I pulled over, got out of the car, and walked up to him.
“Hello,” I said. “I’m Silver. Where are your mommy and daddy?”
The little boy pointed toward the house, set back about 100 feet from the road.
“Well, let’s go find them, okay?” I took him by the hand and he lead me to the side door. I rang the doorbell, and the child ran inside. I told the mother where I’d found her son, and that if I or another driver hadn’t been paying attention, he could have gotten killed.
The words frightened me, probably as much as they frightened the mother. My god. I could have killed this child on my way to get a freaking slice of pizza. I could have taken a life, and permanently altered the lives of this family, my family—and myself. How could I live with such a thing hanging over my head like that?
The woman thanked me, and I walked back to my car. My friend’s message rang in my ears again. “She said to be very careful driving.”
Shortly after that, my friend went to the psychic again, and returned with another message for me. “She said to tell you to be careful with her eyes.”
“Again? Why does she keep mentioning me?”
My friend just looked at me. “I think you should go, so you can talk to her personally.”
Remembering the warning about driving, I took down the details and made an appointment.
I went, and it was interesting. She offers to record each session, so I brought a tape with me. I don’t remember what she told me, except that she saw a lot of paper around me. She asked if I was a student. I wasn’t. But I told her I was in publishing and did a lot of copy editing. And I told her I had just started writing again. “Keep doing it,” she said to me. She was very emphatic about it. “Keep writing and start showing it to people.”
Well, if you check out my fiction from that time, you’ll see it isn’t great. It wasn’t until a couple years ago that I finally started showing people my work. And writing more regularly. My short stories kept getting longer, so last year I decided to try writing a book. I have yet to finish one, but I’ve got tons of ideas. That and Blogit keep me very busy. Very preoccupied.
She said some other things, which I don’t remember very clearly. The tape, I think, is long gone. I’d tossed it in my desk drawer at home, intending to listen again after I’d gotten some distance from it. But then I got married and moved away, and I think my mom threw the tape in the trash, not knowing what it was.
The psychic did, however, mention an aunt by name and suggested she start taking aspirin regularly to fend off an impending stroke or something. And she told me to be careful about my eyes.
Again, with my eyes. Just what was up with that???
After I got married, I got pregnant right away. About six or eight weeks before my son was born, I went to the doctor to have my eyes checked. He discovered I had a hole in my retina. He recommended I have it lasered closed right away, before the baby was born. It could rupture and cause blindness during labor. He also said from the looks of it, it had been there for quite a while, and that I was lucky nothing serious had happened so far.
After I had the hole in my retina fixed, my friend had returned to the psychic a few times, and even my mom had paid her a visit. Not once was I, my eyes, or my driving mentioned again.
