Thanks for tuning into Ted’s Head, I thought, as I walked into the garland-decked cafe. Up next, please enjoy our Holiday Mix, starting now.

In the second or two before I hit the play button on my phone, I saw a man in the corner - brown buzz-cut hair, shiny black shoes, corduroys and dress shirt - frown in confusion. I’d spotted him as I was parking, and had him pegged for either a store manager or an undercover cop. Not for any reason, as far as I could tell - he just had that kind of vibe, y’know?

My theory was confirmed as I hit the play button, and began mentally broadcasting the chiming of bells from my earbuds. The man winced, shot me a brief glare, then pulled a pair of headphones from around his neck and popped them on. He wasn’t the only one - behind the counter, an exhausted-looking barista was openly staring at me, his face contorted into a grimace that was somewhere between despair and bemusement.

I-I-I, crooned Mariah Carey’s voice. Don’t want a lot… fo-o-or Christmas…

“Really, Ted?” the barista asked, as I handed him a ten. “Really?”

I only smiled in reply as he handed me a cup of coffee and my change. There is just one thing I nee-eed, Mariah Carey continued.

I loved the holidays. They made it so easy to keep people out of my head. Normally, I had to resort to either dubstep or else whatever meme songs were freshly stale, but during November and December, privacy was easy.

And I needed privacy.

I headed out of the cafe, unfolding my umbrella to ward off the chilly early-December drizzle. The bookstore where I worked was only a few doors down, and the stores to either side of mine had been vacant for as long as I could recall. Considering I worked alone, and that the Readers’ range was only about twenty feet, that meant I could relax as soon as I was inside. This I did, sighing as I collapsed into the warm, squashy armchair behind my counter, the smell of fresh coffee mingling with the vanilla-like aroma of old paper as I raised the cup to my lips.

Why did I need privacy? Well, it wasn’t because of anything illegal. There were no drug deals or criminal activities I was involved with, no perversions that I fought to hide from the newly-gifted Readers. In most places, the folks with those kinds of secrets had been… attended to, with a sluggishness and inefficiency that the rest of us tried not to remember when the pigs were around. No, mine was the only kind of secret left - the weird kind. The kind that would get you mocked, ridiculed even, but not arrested.

Most Readers wouldn’t divulge those kinds of secrets, of course. The ones I talked to regularly, like Otto the barista, were usually stuck with some degree of voyeuristic guilt, which led them to avoid divulging people’s thoughts unless they had a damn good reason. It was just, y’know, it would only take one loose-lipped Reader to divulge my secret, and then my life would never be the same again.

After all, I thought, looking down at the TED etched into the nameplate on my desk, how the hell are you supposed to look a man in the eye when you know his name is short for Tiddlywinks?

Thanks, Dad.