No. 214

The midday buzz of the busy coffee shop usually helped Jamie concentrate on her work, but today she couldn’t settle in.

She sat in her usual chair in the corner, her back to the wall, a caramel latte just to her right, and stared at the empty screen on her laptop. Unsure where to start her story, she typed a random letter.

“k”.

She sighed and deleted it. There was a large group at the other end of the store, and their noisy chatter was distracting her. She grimaced a little and took her frustration out on her keyboard.

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” she pounded out.

They did. Jamie looked up at them and tilted her head to one side. “Well that was odd,” she told herself. Then her face reddened and she looked behind her to see if there was some reflection they’d seen. There was only empty wall.  She shrugged and returned to her work, once again deleting the words she’d typed.

The annoying group began their banter again just as the words disappeared.

Jamie blinked. Did that just happen? Slowly, she touched eight keys.

“Shut up!”

And there was silence.

She decided to continue the experiment. She typed another message. “Man with the red hat, take off your hat with your left hand.”

It worked. The man at the end of the table raised his left arm and removed his cap.

Jamie looked around, trying to see if anybody recognized what she was doing. All the other people in the store seemed to be going about their business as usual.  

She sat back and took a deep breath. How strong was this power? How long would it last? Questions spun through her head. Suddenly a darker thought occurred to her. “What if...,” she whispered. Then she hunched over the keys and typed out something that didn’t sound like her at all.

“Cashier, empty the till and bring me the money.”