Excerpts from the Journal of a Teenage Telepath

By John Walters

A shy, withdrawn teenager abruptly discovers that he has telepathic abilities. While attempting to cope with problems arising from his newfound powers, he is contacted by a mysterious organization known as the Telepathic Guild.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Astaria Books
• Release date: Mar 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215819562

John Walters

John Walters recently returned to the United States after thirty-five years abroad. He lives in Seattle, Washington. He attended the 1973 Clarion West science fiction writing workshop and is a member of Science Fiction Writers of America. He writes mainstream fiction, science fiction and fantasy, and memoirs of his wanderings around the world.

Book preview

Excerpts from the Journal of a Teenage Telepath

I am writing this at night when the voices are quiet. During the day I am usually too confused to put words together. I sometimes find it hard to distinguish my thoughts from the thoughts of those around me. They come at me like strong gusts of wind or currents in a river and sweep away my control. It's not as bad as it used to be, though; at one point I imagined that I would go mad. Now I have managed, with great effort, to assert some semblance of control. Through conducting research on the internet I have recently discovered that I am not crazy. I am a telepath.

My name is William Ferguson Long. I am seventeen years old. I live in a two-story house on a hill in Seattle with my parents and my sister Amy.

My father is an optometrist. He has an office in a suburb a ten-minute drive from our home. His career did not turn out how he thought it would when he was young. He imagined, like most kids, that he would do something extraordinary, exciting, and manly. When he was in college, his mother suggested optometry as a well-paying profession, and he went along with it. When I entered high school, he projected his desire to excel in sports into me and forced me to turn out for sophomore football. I hated it, did terribly, and ultimately abandoned it. Now my father considers me a wimp and a disappointment. He usually calls me William, but on the rare occasions he is proud of something I've done, he calls me Bill.

My mother is a housewife. She is less complicated and less demanding. Her main concern is that I stay healthy and get good grades. She likes to call me Fergie, after the uncle she got the name Ferguson from. I hate the name and try to dissuade her, but she ignores me most of the time. At least she only calls me that in private at home; when others are around she calls me William.

My sister Amy is two years older than I am. Now that I can read her, I realize that she is sympathetic and protective of me, but at the same time I annoy her, especially when her friends are around. She doesn't like it when I come across as needy, which was most of the time before I realized what was going on. Sometimes she calls me the F-Word. Like she'll be hanging out with her friends and I'll approach and she'll say, Look, here comes the F-Word. She means it as a play on my middle name Ferguson. When Amy is not in the mood to insult me, she calls me Bill.

So that's my family. I used to think we were uniquely dysfunctional, but since my mental awakening I have come to understand that we are not too different from the families around us.

*     *     *

Let me tell you about the strangest Christmas present I ever received. It didn't happen exactly on Christmas Day, which would have been a truly bizarre coincidence, but it took place during the two-week Christmas holiday from high school. This was fortunate, because I think that if my telepathy would have awakened when I was surrounded by my classmates, I might have drowned in their voices. Learning the inner monologues and visions of my parents, sister, and best friend was bad enough.

I woke up late one morning and was sitting at the kitchen table eating the eggs and toast my mother had prepared for me when something like a protective bubble burst in my mind. This membrane or barrier or whatever you want to call it had blocked me from receiving the thoughts of others around and suddenly it was gone. I was exposed like raw flesh from which the skin has been ripped off.

My mother was right there so I got hit with her thoughts first. Inside the placid exterior I had always observed was an amazingly complex personality. Confinement within marital obligations and constraints had somewhat dulled her sensibilities, but despite these limitations she livened her perception of her