It's All In My Head
It’s All in My Head is one of many stories that have spun from Cindy Davis’ novel Zipacna’s Legacy. As an author and psychic, she strives to help adults connect with this sometimes-confusing always fast-paved world. As children, we often have questions our elders cannot answer. We wonder about the person in the corner of the bedroom that no one else can see. Or why something we dream about comes true a day or so later. These aren’t things to fear. They are normal. They are part of your awakening.
It’s All in My Head
It would be a very bad thing to die at six years old. For a long time, the spells only came once in a while. And then, they came all the time—almost every day. One day, it happened in school with my teacher. She got very upset and wanted to send me home. Going home was okay; any reason to be away from school was fine with me. But I was scared she would tell my parents. They are very busy with my three little sisters and I didn’t want them to worry about me.
I said I was scared about my parents finding out, but really, I was just plain scared. Something was wrong inside my head, and I thought I might die. Six years old is too young to die.
Always, when I had a problem, I told my best friend. We talked about everything. Grandfather Zipacna—he’s not really my grandfather, just my best friend. He never laughed even if my questions sounded silly. But then he got sick and couldn’t get out of bed. He gave me lots of things to do around his house. I thought he was keeping me busy so I was not so sad, and told him so.
He laughed. “Not at all, my Pequeña Mierda.”He always called me that. It means Little Shit, his favorite name for me. “I thought I would live forever,” he said. “Now I need your help with things I put off for a long time.”
Now Zipacna is gone and I don’t have anyone to talk to.
So, I have to ask for help.
I found Mamá in the kitchen. She was busy pounding dough on the counter. Her arms jiggled when she worked. Flour puffed all over the place, even into the pile of hair on top of her head. My sisters, who looked just like each other but weren’t triplets, were playing with dolls on the floor, and making a lot of noise. No way to talk to my mother right now.
Just as I opened my mouth to ask where Papá went, the screaming sound of his saw came from the backyard so I went outside. I felt Mamá’s owl eyes watching me, like she knew I wanted something. I always thought her eyes looked like an owl because they watched things without her head moving. That’s what she did, moving only the dark brown and white part, and not even blinking. She didn’t say anything so I kept walking.
My papá works at people’s houses. He paints walls and makes cabinets and new floors. He is a very good worker and is busy all the time. So it was nice to see him home today. Sometimes he takes us kids to play ball in the park. The saw shut off and I hurried to talk to him before he—but the noise came back almost right away.
Probably he was working on a project for Mamá. She complains that he finishes everyone else’s jobs but never hers. He laughed and said, “You should pay me by the hour and I will be sure to get your things done.” I won’t tell what Mamá said to him.
The saw noises kept going. I thought maybe I should not bother him. But no, this was important. Just in case he was too busy, I peeked around the fence. He was bent over the worktable, his big shoulders moving back and forth pushing the wood through the saw. Every once in a while, he shoved his hair out of his face with a sawdusty hand. Mamá is always telling him to get his hair cut but he says he doesn’t have time. Then she says, “Go to the barber or I’ll cut it while you’re sleeping.”
This usually makes him go—and drag me with him—because one time, Mamá did cut his hair and, well, I won’t say what he said to her.
The next time the saw stopped, I walked around the fence. “Papá.” When he turned to look at me, I said, “I need to talk to you.”
His big hands set down the piece of wood. He went to sit on a pile of logs waiting to be cut into firewood; he patted it. “Come sit beside me.”
As I passed the worktable, I saw he was making a doll bed. I was happy for him doing that because it would help keep my sisters from making a fuss that echoed all around our small house and made me put my hands over my ears. Girls! They fussed about everything. It was better to do all you could to keep them happy and busy. Then they were quiet.
I wasn’t sure how to say what was in my head. I thought maybe he would ask a question and that would help me begin. But he only pulled on his fuzzy mustache, his big eyes watching a bird jump along the fence.
“Papá, I—have a problem.“
He made a soft laugh. “I didn’t think you came here to ask why I wasn’t helping your mother bake bread.”
This made me laugh too because I remembered one time he did help. No, help is not the right word. I think the word is disaster. So, I said, “If you wait a few minutes longer, it will be done. She is getting ready to put the bread in the pan.” I kicked the dirt near the log. Dust flew into a cloud and I could not see my feet any more.
“Something bad is happening inside my head.”
“What kind of something?” Did he sound worried or did my mind make it up? He repeated the question.
“I don’t know. That is why it’s a problem.”
“I want to help you. I will help, but I need to know more.”
“Yes, but I don’t know how to say it.”
“Sometimes it’s best just to spit something out and see how it looks.“
“Usually when I spit, it does not look so good.”
My father laughed. “I guess I didn’t say that right.”
“Besides, you always tell me not to spit.”
“You are very right. How about you just say what’s on your mind.” He laid an arm across my shoulders.
Right away, a vision came in my head. I saw my mamá in a hospital bed. She was all sweaty and looked like she was hurt. Her tummy was very big. My papá was
holding her hand. His eyes were worried. A man wearing a white coat came in. He was smiling. How can he be happy when my mother is very sick?
“Miguel…”
I jumped and so did a lizard crawling near my foot. Okay, just tell him. I sucked in a breath and let it out all at the same time. I must’ve done it hard because the lizard jumped and tipped his head to look at me. “Papa, when I touch people, I see things. In my head.” He didn’t speak, which I guess means I didn’t tell him enough. “It’s pictures, like a movie. Something is happening to that person. Usually it is not good.”
He said very softly, “Would you like to give me an example?”
I noticed he was watching the lizard too with its throat puffing in and out, in and out. It was like he was listening to my story also.
“My teacher gave me a pencil. When her fingers touched mine, I saw a man—her husband—hitting her. She cried and fell on the floor. The floor was blue—it was the floor in her house. I got scared and ran away.”
He nodded, probably because I run away all the time. Papá says sooner or later I have to face up to things, so why not do it right away? It is a problem I am working to stop. The same as I am working to stop the things in my head.
“Then what happened?” he said.
“The next day I asked if she is feeling better and she said nothing was wrong.” I looked away from the lizard and into my father’s eyes. They were all scrunchy. I had the idea he didn’t believe what I was saying. “But, Papá, I saw her crying and lying on the floor. She had a bruise—” I touched my arm to show him where.
“Are you sure this actually happened in school and it wasn’t a dream you had during the night? Sometimes I—”
“This happens all the time.”
“Can you tell me about another time?”
“Yesterday when I was going school, I gave Mamá a hug goodbye. When I touched her, I saw a house with snow all around it. Many children were playing, throwing snowballs and things like that.”
“Yes…”
I guessed he was still wondering if I had a dream. So I said, “When I came home, I drew a picture of the house and showed it to Mamá. She made a face like this—“ I wrinkled my eyebrows and lips.
Papá laughed. “She makes that same face at me sometimes too. Did she like the picture?”
“I don’t think so. It made her cry. Papá, it was a nice picture. I don’t know why she cried.”
“Did she say why she cried?”
“She said go take a bath.”
He stood from the log and brushed off his jeans. “There’s only one way to find out answers. Let’s go ask her.”
I followed him around the house. We live in Mexico, near the Atlantic Ocean. It is very beautiful, and hot with a sometimes-salty smelling wind. Mamá comes from a place that is cold and sometimes snows. I have never seen snow. She showed me a picture of it from when she was little. Mamá says it melts fast, like ice in my lemonade, but that doesn’t help me know what it is like.
We found her folding laundry. She smiled at us. “What are my two men up to? Did you come to say you’re hungry?”
“Miguel told me something that happened and he said it made you cry.”
Mamá frowned. “Me? Cry? When was this?”
Papá gave me a look that said tell her, so I said, “When I gave you the drawing of a house.”
My mother knelt beside me. “Those were happy tears, Miguel. You drew a picture of the house where I grew up. It was a very happy time.” She stood and finished folding my sister’s red dress and set it on the dryer. Then she looked at me. “How did you know what my house looked like—you even knew the color was brown. Did you find it in a photo album someplace?”
My father’s hand dropped away from my shoulder. He sagged against me a little. Then he tapped me on the back of the head. “How about you go out and play. I’m going to talk to your mother for a bit.”
I left feeling kind of bad. He said he would help with my problem but it just made more questions. Didn’t he care that I could be dying?
I know it was wrong, but I stayed around to listen. I had to hear when I would die. Papá told Mamá what I said when we were outside. “I don’t know what to think,” he told her. “I feel like he is just having nightmares, and he’ll have to outgrow them.”
They were not nightmares! I stomped my bare foot. Why didn’t he believe me?
“They seem so real to him,” Papá said.
“He’s always been an emotional child, Juan. Sometimes I don’t know how to comfort him when he gets this way.”
“I think this is serious. It’s different from his usual emotions.”
Oh no. I was dying! I sagged against the wall and my parents stopped talking. I felt them listening so I tiptoed away. They would not be happy to see me spying on them. What they said made me sad. Mamá had said to go play, but I didn’t feel like playing.
I sat on the front steps and thought about Gradnfather Zipacna. He told me not to be sad when he is gone. He said I will see him again someday. I don’t know how that can happen, unless I die too. Die! Wow. I didn’t want to die at just six years old, but if I could see him again, I guess it would be okay. I miss him. Every day I write in my journal, just like he did. I cannot believe Grandfather Zipacna has only been gone a year. It seems much longer.
A few days later, Papá took me to a doctor. I was scared when I sat in the office. The doctor was very fat. His chin hung to his chest. I couldn’t figure out how he buttoned his shirt and I guess I stared too long because my father poked me in the ribs.
The doctor did some tests, then I had to sit on a couch and talk to him without my parents there. He asked questions I didn’t want to answer, like: did my parents or anybody in school hurt me? Nobody ever hurt me, but it was not his business. My visions did not have anything to do with people hurting me. I only answered a few questions, and I never told about the visions.
Papá took me to two other doctors. One was in a hospital. I had to get inside a big machine that took pictures of my head. After a while, my father stopped taking me to doctors. But I know he is still worried. All the time, he watches me like he’s scared to leave me alone. Sometimes he takes me to work with him. That’s how I met Jade.
She is Zipacna’s granddaughter and moved here last week. She is going to run his school where he taught people about the spiritual world. Something very weird...she doesn’t know it is a school. She thinks it is a hotel, and I didn’t tell her the truth. I think that is fun.
Anyway, she hired Papá to make the place look new again and he brought me there with him. When I shook her hand, I got a vision that made me run away. It showed her falling off a ladder in Grandfather’s front hallway. She broke her foot. There was blood everywhere. I wasn’t scared because she fell... Well, I was scared about that, but my visions showed things that already happened to people, like my teacher fighting with her husband. I decided some day I would ask about her broken ankle. Did she have to wear a big white cast? My friend Elonzo broke his arm once. The cast was so heavy he wore a sling to keep it in place.
Yesterday, I went to Jade’s with my father. And I asked about her broken ankle. She got a funny look and said she never broke any bones before. So, I told Jade what I saw when we touched. She told me don’t worry, because it already happened—she fell off the ladder the same day she moved into the house.
Then I was really confused. Where was her broken foot? I couldn’t help staring at it.
That’s when she told me she healed it.
“Healed it? You made it better without a doctor? Or a cast?” I asked.
“Yes, but don’t ask how it happened because I don’t know. I lay on the floor all night. It hurt so bad, I kept thinking about the pain and telling it to go away, go away, go away. I guess I fell asleep. I woke up on the floor and couldn’t believe the pain was gone. And it wasn’t broken any more.” She twisted her leg back and forth for me to see.
So many things going through my head right now. First was, all the time before this, my visions were of things that already happened. I explained this to Jade.
“What you had was a premonition.”
She helped me say the word a couple of times.
“That means you were seeing the future,” she said. “I hear it happens to some people.”
I took a minute to understand what she said. If it happens to some people, that means I might not be sick.
Then another thought came to me. “You healed your foot.”
“That’s right.”
“I have heard about healing, but never saw anyone do it, not even Zipacna.”
“I have never heard about self-healing,” she said. “Well, maybe about things like headaches. If I get one and tell it to go away, it always does.” She held up her foot and made it go back and forth. “But never anything as serious as a broken bone.”
For a minute we both looked at her foot. I do not know what she was thinking, but I remembered all the blood on the floor, and couldn’t stop looking for the place where it came out of her.
She put her foot back on the floor. “I guess there are things in this world for which we have no explanation.”
Here’s something that is funny. Grandfather gave his school to someone who doesn’t know anything about healing and visions. And that is a good thing because
Jade and I are learning about it together. Best of all, I am never scared any more because she is just like Grandfather Zipacna except she is young and pretty. Another best thing is that my teacher, Miss Donna, got a divorce and she will work in Jade’s school. She is happy again, and I can see her every day.
Something else I learned. I am psychic. To have visions is normal. Zipacna knew this about me but he wanted me to find out on my own and learn to handle it. Jade read this in one of his journals. And now I can’t wait to learn all there is to know. Someday I will have as many abilities as my two best friends.