What You Know Can Hurt You

It was kind of fun, in the beginning.

When I first became a mutant, I enjoyed it. I liked the -- power. Knowing things no one else knew. Secrets.

Maybe because I always thought there were too many of them. I was curious since I was a kid, I always wanted to *know*. I thought the world would be a better place if we knew more about each other. If there weren't so many walls between us all; so many misunderstandings and communication gaps. I thought that would make things better.

Wouldn't you think so too?

So I was glad when I got my power, a bit scared maybe, but -- glad. Just a touch, one touch, skin on skin, and I would know stuff about a person: what they were feeling, if they liked me, what they really meant underneath the words. I thought it was funny, I thought it was fun, to be able to see that tremendous, vital gulf between what people say and what people mean.

And then, information is power, too, and I had information quite literally at my fingertips. I could've made a fortune in blackmail, selling secrets.

I didn't, of course. But I could've.

I could've stopped crimes too, I guess. I even tried that a few times, momentarily sucked down the superhero route. Thought I had a -- ha -- a *responsibility*, to use my powers for good. To help people, to stop those I knew they were going to do something bad. And I did, a few times. Anonymous tips to the police. Or threatening letters through their mail boxes: "I know what you're going to do, and you better not..." There was a certain satisfaction in that, though I never had the courage to go all out, trying to save the world.

And then, I didn't want to abuse it, the power. I enjoyed it, but I didn't want to let it go to my head, make me turn bad and start hurting people. Not that I could, anyway, not really. I could never change anyone's thoughts or make anyone else hear mine. I tried. More times than I should've. But it never worked. All I could ever do was hear, was feel, what other people were thinking. With just a touch.

That's how it started, anyway. Just messing about, just looking into the surface thoughts of people around me, and only then if I was touching them. But then it started getting less fun. It started getting hard. Because I started realising that there are reasons why people keep some thoughts to themselves, and reasons why people have secrets. And I started realising that not everyone around me really loved me even when they said they did, or loved each other, and that some people's thoughts were full of pain and cruelty and loneliness and hate.

And then I stopped touching people.

And then I started wearing gloves.

But then I got stronger.

And I didn't need to touch people any more, to read their thoughts. I would find them in my head just from being near them, and the thoughts I touched started getting deeper. I started reading further in, not just the top layers, but the thoughts underneath. The things people hide in dark corners of their minds, private wounds and secret crimes; the things they never tell even their families or their closest friends. The things they would never want anyone else to know.

Except that *I* would know.

And so I moved into a flat on my own, away from my family, who didn't love me as much as I thought, away from my friends, who didn't think much of me at all, and I tried to avoid people and I tried to keep my shields up and I tried to let them keep their secrets and to keep them out of my head. And for a while, it seemed to work. Enough to keep me sane.

And I thought I could learn to cope, and learn to use it, and maybe find someone who'd help me do something useful with it.

But then I got stronger.

And I couldn't keep them out anymore, I couldn't keep them out of my head, I kept finding out things about people even when I didn't want to know, even when they were miles away, and moving away from the city didn't help. These days there are people everywhere. And so it stopped being fun, it stopped being interesting, I stopped being sane, and it started being scary and horrible and painful and wrong. Because I shouldn't know these things. I don't have the right to know these things.

But still I get stronger.

Every day, my powers get stronger, and reach further, no matter how hard I try to stop them, until my mind is stretched thin by other people's thoughts, other people's hopes and desires, loves and hates. Other people's crimes.

Everyday I know more, and am less.

The person who is me is drowning underneath all the others who are not, the weight of them is obliterating me, and I can't think straight anymore, I can't concentrate anymore, I can't look at anyone without knowing all their secrets, all their dirty little secrets, all their fears, all their hells -- and I have hell enough of my own, why do I have to live in theirs too? I am overwhelmed by them, by the sheer number of *them*, by the others who are not me, in my head and in my life, and I can't keep them out anymore and *I don't want to know*, do you understand? I don't want to know that my sister is fucking her lecturer to get a good grade and that my mother never wanted kids and that she blames us for the way her life is because she wanted to be a singer and now all her dreams are dead and the greengrocer fantasises about his eight-year-old daughter all day and he goes home every night into her room and she will never tell anyone she will never tell or he will hurt her and the next door neighbour is having an affair but her husband doesn't know, lucky him, oh god, lucky him, and he still worships the ground she walks on and my landlady is abused by her boyfriend but she thinks if she just shows him enough love it will be fine and it's her fault anyway she doesn't give him enough attention maybe if she gave up her job he'd be happy with her and everything would be fine, it would be fine, but it won't be fine, she should know that, she should know, but I know instead, and there are people I've never even met but I know everything about them, I know who they love and who they betray, and I don't want to know, I don't have the right, I don't want to know, please, I don't want to know any more. I don't want to know.

But still I get stronger.

And I am losing myself with every secret I find out, I fall apart with each new addition. I am in a constant process of becoming less than I was before. I have few thoughts left of my own, because there is only so much room in a mind, there is only so much space for secrets, and the person I was is being forced under to make room for the thoughts of more important people.

And so there is becoming less and less of me every day, and my hold on myself, on my sanity, grows more fragile all the time. But still, I could cope, if my power would just stop growing stronger. If it would stop now, I might still salvage something of myself. There might still be a little of me intact, underneath all the other voices. And there might still be a little place left for me to hide, somewhere in my mind.

If it stopped now.

If it stopped.

But it doesn't stop.

It won't stop.

I just get stronger.

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