First Draft.

This is the start of a story idea. Feel free to critique. Try to be gentle.


"That man thinks you're pretty, miss Jane."

"How do you know that, Pete?"

"I can hear it."

Jane looked at the large youth in puzzlement. His slightly chubby face showed no signs of joking, his tone had been incredibly matter of fact.

"What? What do you mean you can hear it?"

"I can hear it."

Asking for a better explanation from an eighteen year old with the mental capacity of an eight year old rarely yielded clear answers. Jane regarded the six foot three adolescent as he sat across from her in the more than half empty cafe before proceeding.

"What do you hear?"

"I hear his brain."

"You can't hear someone's brain." She scoffed.

This was a bad idea. Pete was 230 pounds of, more or less, a child, and he began to get angry at the sound of Jane's derision. His protests immediately drew the attention of other patrons.

"Okay! Okay! What can you hear from my brain?"

"You think I'm lying, but I'm not!"

People were beginning to stare. Jane needed to calm him down. She had only been working with Pete Jacobs for three weeks and hadn't yet had to face him in a state of agitation.

"Okay, Pete, I believe you. But can you show me again? Can you listen to my brain again?"

"Sure." he said, calming down a bit.

Jane immediately thought of something completely unrelated to anything in the cafe or the conversation they'd been having.

"Oh!" Pete said, excitedly, "I want nachos!"

Jane gave him a look of incredulity. She had thought of nachos, thinking there was no way he could guess that.

"Miss Jane, are we going to get nachos for dinner?"

She was still not sure what to think.

"Yeah. Yeah, we can go get nachos."

On the drive from the cafe to the taquería Jane continued to test Pete's mind reading.

"Cheese cake. A fast car, it's red. An old lady, your mom, she's dead now. That's sad. June 18th, it's your birthday. A giraffe." He was never wrong. As soon as she jumped from one thought to another he could say what it was.