As mentioned quite earlier in our story, Thinks and things can hear the thoughts of children and mental patients the loudest.
All too often demons ascend from hell (or the depths of one's mind) and the Fixer has to perform a mock exorcist. Space alien abductions are probably the most common of mental patients. Luckily, the Fixer has never had to do interplanetary travel, as alien abductees are always returned to their home (or a corn field, just miles away from their home) to tell their tale to anyone who is willing to listen.
The refrigerator started to buzz. Arlan's mom scooped a glop of peanut butter with a butter knife, “You hear that? Second time today, second time today.” She stuck the peanut buttered bread slices together, dropped it onto a plate and handed the sandwich to Arlan, who was watching minutes tick off the clock in the dining room.
“Don't know why they feel a need to spy on me, I'm just a stay at home mom. Just trying to support my son,” she went back into the kitchen. She took a broom and smacked the ceiling with the end of the handle so hard that bits of ceiling texture were falling down, landing in her hair. “We know what you're trying to do up there!”
The neighbors in question included a young boy named Taylor, who's in Arlan's class. Arlan tries to keep his mom away from his family so that Taylor doesn't find out about her and start to talk to people in school. Because those people will talk to other people. They might find out.
“Mom!”“What?” she stares at him with a straight, blank face.
“They're not spying on you!”
“Well, if they're not spying on me, they're most definitely stealing from me. Remember my pair of good, expensive earrings? Remember how they were missing last week? Well, they showed up in my dresser drawer just this morning.” She tucks the hair around her face behind her ear, the evidence of the neighbor's debauchery shining in her ear lobes.
She continues with shouting and broom smacking. Arlan puts his hands to his ears and shouted, “Stop being so stupid!”
“Oh, so, are you one of them now? Are you turning against me?” she looks at him and pauses, “Or perhaps, you were one of them all along!” she holds the butter knife to his chest.
Arlan doesn't know what to say.
“You're an impostor! You're no son of mine,” she holds the knife so it's level with his chest.
And with this last thought, did Arlan look any different? Were the horizontal stripes on his shirt now vertical? Was he a little taller? A little shorter? Did his ears stick out a bit more from under his dark hair? Did the moles on his face and the birthmark on his left arm suddenly disappear? He is a changeling?
No. Thinks and things did not pass near Arlan's mom. Or perhaps he did pass by and heard her thoughts but did not turn her think into a thing.
While the most original thinks are the loudest to Thinks and things' ears, many of them are much too premature or unstable for this world.
All that Arlan knows is that something is wrong with his mom's mind and the doctors are trying their best to fix it while she rests in a new home.
Soon after this incident, Arlan moved into a new home, too. Arlan now lives with his aging grandmother. He's the new, weird kid at a different school. The kid that doesn't talk. The kid that doesn't smile. The kid with the mom in the mental ward. Arlan soon finds out that he shouldn't think out loud when reducing fractions or word problems in class. The teachers notice and whisper to each other too much.
Sadness melts into depression and numbness. Soon he arrives at a point where he's happy to be ignored, forgotten. Life is easy when the bully decides to give you an off day to practice blending into the background. Arlan thinks about asking his grandma to buy him clothes that matches the same hue as the halls and walls of school.
He gets anxiety attacks. He gets nervous at school because some days he isn't ignored. Some days he isn't forgotten. He doesn't want to go school anymore. First, he starts to fake illness. Then it turns into a real illness. Arlan can't focus on work when he's threatened on the bus ride to school. He can't think out loud anymore to help him with his work. He can't think right. He starts to think he can't do anything at all.
He's been staying in bed all day. Reading books, at first. Then he moves on to just looking at the pictures. Watching television. Then he moves on to just having it on as background noise to fall asleep to. Lame night talk show jokes are his lullabies. The television drains out his thoughts so he can't hear all of them. Unfortunately, Thinks and things has already heard a few. Soon the boy will be thinking less. Just waking up around noon and eating. Then back to sleeping.
Arlan looks into mirror, hates what he sees. But soon, he won't look into the mirror at all. One day, Arlan won't recognize his reflection in a store window. That is, if he feels strong enough to get out of bed. After a little bit of time, he won't see himself at all. If you can't see yourself, you might lose yourself. He doesn't care to comb his hair, brush his teeth, or take baths unless nagged at by his grandma. Grandma may start to nag less and less. She's old and this is a losing battle.
Unless Arlan changes this thinking. But Arlan doesn't really talk anymore. “Are you hungry, Arlan,” she might ask. “No, maybe, yes” are his choices. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Three words spoken out loud a day.
He speaks inside his head almost entirely now. Thinks and things hears thoughts from all over the world but Arlan's are the loudest. The loudest are the most powerful. So powerful that Thinks and things doesn't know if he is able to stop Arlan's thinks from becoming things now. The boy who can't do anything. Once a thing is created and set in motion, it's hard to stop.
You see, that one night not too long ago, when Arlan was looking for the Big Dipper, he thought two thinks at once. He thought that someone should invent guard rails for book cases. Thinks and things heard this thought and opened the gate, so to speak, for this think to become a thing. But Thinks and things hadn't closed the gate when Arlan thought the Big Dipper didn't exist simply because he could not see it. Now the door to the gate is stuck. It won't move. More thinks have been finding their way into becoming things that shouldn't be.
Sleep. Eat. Sleep. Arlan exists just to exist, not live. Arlan becomes like a machine. Machines don't feel.
So, did Arlan suddenly become a machine? A robot? Was he made out of bolts and steel and not bone and flesh? Could he compute complex calculations within a fraction of a second? Does he freeze up when he's presented with multiple tasks all at once? Does he talk in monotone? He doesn't need Thinks and things to make this happen, he can do it by himself.
At school, Arlan unscrews his brain, takes out his mind, and places it in a happier place.
Because sometimes some boys would approach him, take him out of the comfort of the background. Arlan knew exactly what to do, the only thing he knew how to do. He pressed the “on” button inside of his head so he could become a machine.
I'm made of metal, no one can hurt me. I'm a machine. I'm a robot.
He took a hard blow the rib cage that was too hard to ignore.
Parts of me can always be repaired or replaced.
Another boy steps on Arlan's nose.
I'm bleeding, robots can't bleed!
Arlan begins to shut down. Just like a machine.