There were good days, and not-so-good days: days where Charlie could function at a reasonably normal level, and days where the ide of such a thing would have been laughable had she been possessed of the faculties to laugh at herself. Fortunately, today was one of the former; they were becoming more common lately, thanks to some medication changes. Still, she was a far cry from "normal" and always would be. As long as she was invaded by the whispers of thoughts not her own, as long as she could pinpoint a person's location just by knowing their name -- she would never, ever be normal.
It was hard to distinguish between thoughts that were real and the voices that sometimes played with her ears. The meds made it easier to tell, but she was never really certain. Logically, the more mundane things ("Did I leave the oven on?" "I need to pick up milk on the way home." "I can't believe that bastard was cheating on me with Linda.") were the real, other-people thoughts. Then again, logic was rarely in her corner. At least with the visual hallucinations, she could figure out pretty easily if what she was seeing defied the laws of logic.
Charlie was lost in her thoughts, playing the game of real-or-imaginary with all the invaders inside her mind; she didn't notice anyone but herself even though the street was bustling with foot-traffic. She was small for her age (five-foot-nil) so when she collided head-on with who-or-whatever, she was knocked thoroughly off her feet. As usual, she was slow to react to this, blinking owlishly up at the perpetrator for a solid ten seconds before the fact even registered that she had bumped into another human being.
"Oh. Um. Sorry. I didn't -- I didn't see you there."