The Peculiar Pendulum

She sits on the high stool in the flamboyant kitchen, her blonde hair illuminated by the spot lights and her defined face lit by the computer screen that she so often stares blankly at. I walk in the room, say hello. No response. An awkward silence thickens the air.

Then a little peep.

Hi.

She has this barrier or an invisible hermit crab-like shell that only occasionally sheds. I don’t understand. I’m an empath, so my mother says, and I respond a lot to emotions. I can usually tell what people are thinking by the way they act. There are people with barriers… then there is her. It’s like a germ, it travels and infects me and fills me with paranoia and dread; and then suddenly I’m lifted out of it. A smile. Warm and friendly like some kind of switch has gone off. I’m filled with optimism and the little voice of doubt in my head dissolves into nothingness.

Oh how the pendulum sways and conducts you in manner that I find most peculiar.