Mindf**k by Fanie Viljoen Page A

to hurry. He’s on his way.’

TRACK 29
What I know
    I’m performing magic. Mind magic. And you’re my volunteer.
    That’s what Sky had said in my dream. The one I had before we went to the MindFuck festival.
    Was he still doing it? Was this what that was?
    Or didn’t I hear correctly? Did he say We’re performing magic or I’m performing magic?
    I couldn’t remember. We would have made more sense. We – Kerbs and Sky.They were up to something. I just didn’t know what the fuck it was. My head was spinning. I tried reasoning but one thought just tripped over another. Like Grade 1 kiddies who all wanted to stand at the front of the queue.
    Write it down. Write down what you know for certain, it’s the only way you’re going to think this thing through, I decided.
    I tore a page from my Math book. (I should probably have gone back to school already. What day was it? It didn’t really matter.)
    The pencil case popped open in my hands as I tried opening it. I had to crawl behind my bed to find my pen.
    With one hand I smoothed out the page.
    Think.
    Where did it all start? What happened first?
    The white page cried out to me. Interrogated me.
    Where?
    Why?
    Who?
    What?
    I tried thinking.
    The first thing. What was the first thing? My mind didn’t work anymore.
    Write down only one word. One thing you know for certain, Burns.
    One bloody word, Burns.
    The page remained white. The pen sweated in my hand. I knew nothing, nothing, fucking nothing.
    A sweat-, snot- or teardrop dripped onto the paper. The paper absorbed it, enlargingthe stain.
    Blood.
    I wrote it down in outsized letters across the white paper. Scratched over the letters until they flowed into each other. Until the paper tore and I was eventually etching the word into the wooden desk.
    That much I knew, there was blood.
    That’s what my dream said. That’s what Sky said too.
    There will be blood. And there was.
    Or was there?
    Doubt: the eighth sin.
    Am I sure there was blood? I tried remembering how the blood flowed from Partygirl’s head. I tried to remember what colour it was, what it smelled like, what it felt like. But the part of my brain that controlled the sight, smell and touch, hadshut down. (It is now safe to turn off your computer.)
    Then I didn’t know it for sure. If there wasn’t any blood, then it meant …
    I crumpled the paper into a ball. Tore it apart, tossed it aside.
    Blood was still etched on the desktop. I scratched it out with my pen. Just a bunch of lines. Out, out, damned spot. I smashed the pen to pieces against the wall.
    I knew nothing.
    Amazing to have arrived at this point and look back only to see nothing.
    I grabbed a gym bag from my closet and started stuffing it full of clothes and other crap. Anything really. Sky was right. I had to get away. But not just away from Kerbs. From him as well. I had to start over. Clean slate. Somewhere where the people didn’t know me. And I wouldn’t get involved with people like Kerbs and Sky again.
    A pain shot through my head. Instant headache.
    More clothes, toothbrush, toothpaste. What else? I didn’t know what else I needed because I didn’t know where I was going.
    Pain pulsed through my temples.
    Blood that couldn’t pass through the veins.
    We’re performing magic. Mind magic
    And then, as if an angel had appeared out of the mist, I suddenly knew what Kerbs and Sky wanted to do. It was a game to them. Good cop, bad cop. Kerbs, the dangerous guy who was capable of murdering Partygirl and who tried desperately to pin it on me. Kerbs who lied and said that he had murdered Sky because he wanted to go to the cops. Sky who feigned warning me against Kerbs. Who wanted me out of the way. Perhaps they were both setting a trap for me so that they could kill me …
    But why? I said that I would keep my mouth shut. They needn’t have worried.
    Then the answer flashed through my mind. The same reason Kerbs gave for killing Partygirl.
    Because he could.

TRACK 30
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