I stood on our golden cornfield. The summer sun warmed my body and the fresh air filled my lungs. Somewhere behind me, my two little twins were playing tag, while my husband sat on the porch couch, drinking his afternoon beer. I took a deep breath as a gentle breeze brushed against my warm skin and I allowed myself a small smile. My long, fine combed hair waved like the waves that you would see on a windy beach. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the freedom I felt from finally being away from city life.

  "Hey you there! You sleeping or something?"

  I opened my eyes and looked around me. My children were frozen mid-jump, as if someone had paused a movie. I blinked.

  One blink.

  Two blinks.

  Three blinks.

  The world around me began to disappear. Carried away by the wind, until only I was left in the dark cloud. I shouted, but the only thing that answered was the sound of my own hollow echo. I closed my eyes again. Counted to ten, like my mother had taught me when things like this happened.

  Another vision. The women in my family had always had the ability to look into other people's lives. The only difference being that, unlike me, the others could control it. We called this ability "Shin". This had made most women in my family famous. They had all found a career using shin. My grandmother was a famous writer. She would make paragraph after paragraph just writing about other people's lives. Meanwhile my mother was working as a magician. Using her ability to stalk the guests and tell them stuff that no one should know. I was the only one who couldn't control it. Even my adopted cousin had managed to learn how to control it. I knew how to get out of it and that was it. Count to 10, blink three times.

  When I opened my eyes, I was standing in the Golden Field again, the small basement bar on Green road where I worked. The air in my lungs was replaced by smoke from the many lit cigarettes. Over by the only heater in the room a group of guys were playing a game of cards. Blackjack by the looks of it. They shouted and laughed, their voices piercing into my brain. The only thing that matched their volume was the House music blasting from the speakers on the walls. In one corner, a couple were making out.

  'Get a room. 'I thought.

  I shot them a judgmental look. My hair was messy again, and my eyes looked like I hadn't slept in days.

  A hand snapped right in front of my face. It was slimy, hairy, and dirty, and had the same smell as the herring I had forgotten to put in the fridge last Christmas. I blinked as the hand snapped again. Slowly, I followed the hand up along the even hairier arm until I ended up eye to eye with the man. He had a long, triangular nose, thin long hair, and was missing at least half his teeth. He glared at me with his almost completely black eyes. I couldn't quite decide whether I felt sorry for him or whether I was annoyed that he had snapped at me. I chose option number two.

  "Answer me when I'm talking to you."

  His voice was hoarse, almost as if he hadn't had anything to drink in years. I muttered an apology and asked what he would like. Even though he had been rude, he was still a customer. The man seemed to go into thinking mode, and there wasn't much I could do but stand there in awkward silence. Finally, he asked for a White Russian. I smiled as I turned around to make the drink. In a way, he reminded me of The Dude from The Big Lebowski.

  I stood at our kitchen counter making tea. Our children had both caught a cold after being outside. My husband was Donald Duck for them under the warm wool blanket, while the fire in our small fireplace was roaring like the fire breathing dragons I had read about as a kid. I poured the hot water into the cups and gave each cup two teaspoons of honey. I placed them on a tray together with the cookies my mother had brought a few weeks earlier. I carefully picked up the tray and slowly walked toward my family. A shove from behind.

  I almost fell straight into the cabinet with beer glasses we had in the bar. I looked behind me. The Dude stood there, arms out in front of him. It wasn't hard to put two and two together and figure out that he had shoved me.

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  "Hurry up, Darling."

  He shot me a toothless smile. I could clearly smell his breath from where I stood. I wanted to say something back. To scream that it was assault. That it wasn't okay and that I should call the police. But he was bigger than me in every way. Even if tried to say anything he could easily stop me. Choke me to death and everyone would be too drunk to care.

  I muttered another pathetic apology and finally made his White Russian. He took it and went to sit with some friends at the back of the bar. I imagined him saying: 'The Dude abides' as he walked away.

  I sighed and began cleaning the bar. We closed in an hour, so it was time to start shutting things down. I took the cloth at my side. It was still wet from when I had wiped up a spilled beer earlier. It was the only one we had left and we wouldn't be getting a new one for a few days. Greedy ass boss. I sighed and wrung the cloth out in the sink. The smell of old beer shot up into my nostrils as the liquid from the cloth flowed out between my fingers.

  I finally managed to get the vomit out of the cloth. It had been food poisoning. I walked around cursing to myself. I had been in charge of making food for the past few weeks, so it was my fault that the children were now lying in their beds throwing up every 30 minutes. Philip had fallen asleep early tonight. I hoped I hadn't accidentally poisoned him too. 'Poisoned.' A single tear slipped from my right eye at the thought. I was the only one who hadn't eaten that day.

  "So something good can come out of you never eating?"

  Philip had joked. I laughed in the moment, but it only made things worse. I sighed and threw the cloth into the sink. Then I took a half-empty bottle of red wine and went out onto our porch to drink it. I sat on the small Couch and looked out towards our golden fields. It looked like it was about to rain. That was probably fine. Our field could use the water anyway. I lifted the bottle to my mouth. The sweet taste hit my tongue and slid elegantly down my throat. I took another sip. Bigger this time. This time it was less elegant and I began to choke on the sweet liquid. I just managed to cough it up. It had started to rain, and there I sat. My family was sick because of me, my white T-shirt red with wine, and my tears melting into the rain.

  It was raining while I was waiting for my bus. The time was 04:36 when I looked at my phone. We had been forced to close later, since The Dude had refused to leave without getting my number. (Fucking weirdo). On top of that, the bus was late as always. I looked at my phone again. 20%, it said. Not much. If the bus was too late I most likely wouldn't be able to take it home, considering I only had tickets on my phone. I was using my phone to track the bus. It was cold making it lose battery at a fast pace.

  18%

  15%

  13%

  The bus finally came. Almost 40 minutes late. I stepped in and showed my ticket to the driver so he could explain that I wouldn't be breaking the law if I ran out of battery. I looked down at my wet hand. It was shaking, and I didn't know if it was because of The Dude or just because I had been standing in the rain for so long. I leaned against the window in the empty bus and began counting raindrops.

  When I woke up, I was lying on the sofa. Philip was making breakfast and the kids were playing. A clean set of clothes had been laid out for me. I made some kind of grunting sound and began to get dressed. I had a terrible headache, but the kids seemed better, which was the most important thing. I got up and fetched a glass of water. Philip and I didn't look at each other as I passed him. We hadn't done that since he found me wet and drunk on our porch. He hadn't even bothered to talk about it. It had been my idea to sleep on the sofa, something he clearly didn't have a problem with. I lifted the glass to my mouth.

  The beer was cold. I had the day off, so I allowed myself a beer. It felt good. After serving so many drinks, it was always nice when I could just lean back and enjoy a beer myself. I sat down on the leather sofa that had stood in my Grandfather's (The one on my dad's side) old vacation house. I had always loved it, so when he died a few years ago, I inherited it. I put my phone on charge, changed my clothes, and dried my body. The hot water felt good on my cold body and I finally felt relaxed. I turned on the TV. What I watched didn't matter much to me. I was going to bed after this beer anyway. I found some kind of dating show and chose to watch it. I must have zoned out, because when I opened my eyes again, I had dropped the beer onto my lap and the dating show had been replaced by some kind of true crime show. I looked around confused, trying to figure out what had woken me up from my slumber, since I usually slept pretty heavily. And there it was. A knock on my door. Not a strong knock, but just loud enough to wake someone up. I carefully got up. It wasn't exactly common for people to come and knock on my door at night. I grabbed a hammer my dad had forgotten a while back, while helping me mount a small shelf to store my books. I was maybe a little paranoid, but it wouldn't be the first time someone had followed me home from work.

  I reached the door and opened it slowly, and there she was. A woman I had seen before was standing there. From where I had seen her I could not remember. I tried to speak, but couldn't manage to do so. As I tried to get out any word she fell over. I screamed. A murder had just happened right here in my apartment.

  One blink.

  Two blinks.

  Three blinks.