Disclaimers: The Dead Zone belongs to King, the Pillars, and Lion's Gate. The Dead Zone is usually great about creating fake news stories on the official site to flesh out their world, but the one time an article was promised in an ep, “My Dinner With Dana,” it never appeared! So here’s my take. Obviously, spoilers for that ep.
Over the past few months, the local papers, radio and TV stations have been filled with news about the mysterious psychic, Johnny Smith. Now, during that time I’ve gotten to know Johnny, and I’d go so far as to call him a good friend, one whose celebrity status has taken away any hope he might have of living a normal life. Celebrity psychics are a distraction to students, so Johnny had to give up the teaching career he loved. His neighbors shun him as a freak, despite the fact that the few who actually take a chance and talk to him call him a wonderful, regular guy.
“After our son died, Johnny helped us keep it together,” said Mr. Davis, who lives across from Johnny’s house. “We’d never really spoken to him before then, but he’s been a good friend when we needed one, and he’s still tutoring my daughter Lindsey in science.” In my own scientific curiosity, I posed Johnny a question: was he really the regular guy he claimed to be underneath the fame and the strange powers? He invited me to judge for myself over dinner at his home. How could I refuse?
The first difficulty in dating a psychic is holding his attention. Which, I suppose, is true for dating any guy, but most guys are distracted by who won the game last night, not what you did at your tenth birthday party. Imagine trying to talk to someone coherently while six other people no one else can hear scream at you, car crashes play out in the background, and children race around the dining room table. That’s everyday life through the eyes of Johnny Smith. “It’s hell for me,” Johnny admitted. “There are certain things you don’t want to know on a first date, like what furniture you’re going to argue over at the divorce proceedings in six years.” And forget The Talk, there is nothing more embarrassing than having your date see your entire romantic history in 3D, down to the eighties hairdo you wore to your prom.
Even in his own home, away from other distractions, Johnny had roughly ten or fifteen visions an hour that night. The simple task of cooking a meal becomes a trip into the twilight zone when you consider how many people touch a bottle of wine or a sprig or parsley before it makes its way into your kitchen, each with their own psychic signature. “My friend Bruce usually gets my mail with me,” Johnny told me when I commented on the visions triggered by his own groceries. “I don’t like touching strange letters or packages until the edge is taken off.”
But two things surprised me more than anything else I learned that evening. The first was that having every little touch trigger an episode of ‘This Is Your Life’ gets uncomfortable very fast. There’s a reason Johnny limits his circle to a few close friends; old friends know all the stories already; there’s less new information to assault or embarrass him. The second was all the things Johnny can’t see. Throughout the evening, interspersed with other visions, Johnny kept mentioning being blinded by lights when he touched me. What did it mean? A subconscious need to protect my privacy? A metaphor for the burdens of fame and the press? It was only after the evening had ended that he realized what he was seeing, a car accident he barely managed to save me from in time.
“I go through this with every vision, every case I help the police with,” said Johnny. “It’s how I make mistakes. I get a glimpse, and it’s not clear what I’m looking at or why it’s important, or how it’ll change when I act on what I see. So I see a man with blood on his hands. Great. Does that mean he’s a murderer or an EMT who’s upset about his job? If I save someone but can’t stop their killer, is someone else going to pay the price down the line? I never get the context, I just have to wing it and piece together the fragments as best I can.”
For our second date, he’s paying for dinner, but I’m getting the tickets for the movie. He doesn’t want to spoil the ending.
End.