Voices

The one-

"Why don't you believe me Curtis...?" She was sobbing as she reached out for him. She cupped his cheeks. "I'm not lying..." Tears ran down the red blush on her cheek. "Help me." She hugged him now. But he tried to push her away, saying his necessary words. "Hey, it's gonna be okay...look...look at me Therese. You are fine. I believe you." "No you don't." She turned angry, furiously wiping away the wet marks the tears had left behind. "And I'm not fine you know that you...you..." she turned away from him. And ran. Towards her bedroom. Their bedroom. He heard the door slam and sighed.

What was I doing?

I sat there staring at the two bleed. One bled her soul out and the other bled his lies. I might have smiled. Once or twice, at him. For no perfect reason. My state of being at that time was unnatural. A bit sad maybe, hence explaining those smiles. (I usually smile when I'm sad. Has no relation to me being happier.)

Maybe I was expecting better. From her. All those times had spent talking...and observing...in the end, the result was futile. She let me control her.

Which, to be true, was ironical.

Sometimes I wonder. What am I? Am I her soul? Her essence of being? Or maybe something she wants to be? A ghost perhaps. Or a more subtle mirage. But when I ask her, she has it true.

I'm just a voice.

A voice, only for her. For Therese.

I never expected that she would try to share me with him.

He had his head down; contemplating his shame he opened the door. The night came in. He stepped out. The door was shut behind him. He was gone. I watched him through the window.

He paused once. To look at the blood flower bearing hibiscus. And then turned his head towards the half grown mango tree. 'To remember her' he thought. Two trees and their memories to remember a person by.

I never understand the emotions attached to the past- and their inanimate objects. I think I never will.

But Therese tells me that's because I don't exist. Because I'm not an emotional being like everyone else.

He resumed his walk towards the gate; looked back at the house, and then, the night consumed him. I faded away to Therese.

'He's gone' I say.

She sleeps and I sleep too.

*

Therese-

I think I'm prepared to be called 'mad'. It's a feeling you couldn't put down in words. You feel...rehabilitated. Yes. And then you could fly.

It's like talking to someone (something?) that you know isn't there. Even weirder, you get responses. You converse; you get consumed by what it tells you. But, in the end, it's still a voice.

A voice which should fade.

The things it says...they mean a lot. At least to me they do.

It's different- getting to know yourself. But not much different than it was to know him.

Curtis Eborn. Dark hair, drooping down to his brow-line; brown, brown eyes that seem to suck you in; and that grin that looks idiotic , yet kinda cute on him. He was just your ordinary guy.

But that's before you get to know him.

He has conflicting personas; to say in the least possible words.

He hides himself from the world by a fabricated veil he has breathed into, lived into...

But he controls it so effortlessly, you think- 'that's him!'

But he's not.

When he lifts that veil, you get to know that he is...well, different... from what he shows he is. A quieter, calmer version than the crazed Curtis.

The voice tells me that I loved him from the beginning.

Maybe I did.

I had opened my eyes three years ago to find the voice. It was different then. And it appeared almost a month after the night Curtis said he loved me.

That had been the most beautiful night I'll remember.

The voice...it had come to my dreams first. Shapeless and formless. Speaking about him. And how he was for me.

It was sort if stupid, but I know that it had been the voice. It grew stronger as I frequented my time spent with Curtis.

And it grew darker.

You know, most of us have experienced something more than self talks. More powerful, perhaps. 'Cause you get replies that you don't want to hear.

Might be you're afraid of hearing. Afraid because those answers are against the subconscious norm we have created in our minds.

But those are exactly the things, which, in the end, we want to come true.

This 'something' of mine is staying longer than I expected it and so I think...

Will it go?

*

The one-

I know I'm an unwanted guest. I can't help it. Anyways, why wouldn't she want me? I'm so true. Telling her exactly what she is. Not who, no, that's another matter. What she is.

A person, yes, but what else?

Well, a lot of things. But one thing- that I found is common among the

other people I've consumed- it's that they believe they are the judges. They judge all from what had happened to them at some point of their life.

Memories... remember?

Memories make them judge.

Is it so hard not to judge, when you have your shitty memories?

Therese says yes.

Well then, I decided, let them just be memories- him, the house, the god-damn garden with its bloody trees. Let them fade.

Maybe I'm evil. Evil and just. And if she shuns me, I'm gonna drive her mad. I'm gonna destroy her soul and have a laugh about it later.

Just a voice? So much more.

I don't exactly know how she brought me to life. What I do know is that she kept criticizing her will to be a part of him...to never let go of him...and other weird concepts I never understand...and there I was in her dream, manipulating her. I almost had her but...

I guess her love was incomparable.

I don't judge because I have no memories.

And now Therese has to realize that he wasn't going to come back. She has to let go.

-

When I came to her, she was out in the garden, looking up at a red hibiscus blossom. I had thought she would but no, she didn't cry. Crying makes them a bit more vulnerable.

I guess she sensed me.

"He kissed me here once" she said. "Why did he go?" This was awkward. "Because he never had the courage to know you"

"And you did?"

I sighed. She still kept forgetting. "I am you"

She stood up abruptly. "You're just a part of me. A stupid sadist. A worthless part. I don't need you..."

"But I do, Therese." Butter talks amuse me. But I had a feeling that this wasn't going to work.

"No you don't." Her voice was serene. Too calm to be taken lightly; with an aura of rage surrounding them. "You made him go."

"Therese...I...I'm just your voice..."

"Get out of my head." She said, softer than ever.

"You've got to let go Therese, of your memo..."

"GET OUT OF MY GOD-DAMN HEAD!" she screamed. A few bystanders, who seemed to be passing by at that moment, turned and looked at her strangely. A pretty woman screaming to herself like a maniac.

I could have done things at that moment...things that could have led her to an asylum. But, I let go. She ran into the house. I'm gonna emphasize with her later. I grinned.

A voice emphasizing with flesh and blood...

Poor, poor, Therese...

I'm no sadist.

*

Therese-

Is this what it fells like? Going mad? The way those people looked at me...a look soaking with pity, awe and repulsion...

I am going mad. The voice is making me mad. And every word it says has only one essence to it-'I'm the king, and you're my pawn. Do as I say or you die. The hard way. Wanna play?'

It haunts me. But it does have the truth of it. I know. Everything it had said to me, for the past three years, it was all so true.

We see all by how all sees us.

We're just puppets on strings; puppets played by our memories. And each of us thinks that they are in control, when the truth is that there is nothing to control.

And now that he's gone, I'm broken.

If the voice has so much of it true, maybe it is true in its claim that Curtis is never going to come back.

Is it because of me that he went?

Last night?

He had been back from work. I had come back home a few hours early. We had been married for a few months now; fresh in love...

I had been paranoiac. Dreading something- not knowing what. All the while... 'Is someone following me?' 'What does it all mean?' 'What is going on with me?' I guess I might have been on the edges of psychosis. I couldn't sleep. I wanted him. Curtis. I wanted him to be with me.

Had 'the voice' caused all of this? I don't know, but could be yes. I never wanted to know the answer.

So, when he had kissed me that night, I broke.

And told him. Everything.

"I hear voices in my head, Curt...they, they poison my mind"

Maybe I was dreading what the voice will do to me when it found out what I was doing.

"I, I can't help it...please..." I was hysterical. Crazed.

"Help me."

He nudged me a bit when I hugged him. Maybe it was nothing but...

I got angry.

I had cried myself to sleep that night. Exhausted myself. And then the voice started its game of driving me mad.

'He's gone. He's gone. He's gone. He's gone...'

Nobody had said it was going to be like this...I wished for the stars. I wished for him. I wished for....

The sun woke me up.

-

When you realize you're getting psychologically disturbed, you'll do anything to counteract it.

So now, when the voice tells me to do something, I'll do it. It tells to slit off my wrists, I'm gonna do that too. Curtis is not coming back.

I don't know what my life is turning into.

And I believe this was the monster that was supposed to eat us when we didn't go to sleep.

This was the beast we were taught to be afraid of.

Am I so vulnerable? I don't want to be.

But I have to be.

The voice didn't come to me the whole day. But it did when the sun set.

*

The one-

"Therese..." I start. Astoundingly, she listens. "This house, the trees, him...they are just here to be memories. And memories are meant to stay. They aren't meant to be. So, hey, you got to let go."

She nodded.

"Well then," this was getting a bit boring. "Your memories don't bind you now, huh? You're gonna fly..."

She was thinking of going to her parents, halfway across the world. And she was thinking of all the time she had spent here. In this house. The bedroom...the TV, the books...hundreds of them that they read together...and him. Him most of all. But I couldn't tell if she was thinking of forgetting.

Nobody said it was easy.

Now that he was gone, she tried to remember him through the objects connected to him.

Associating a person with inanimate things? I never understand them.

Well, she has to move on. It's not me wanting this. I never want anything. I could not want anything. I'm just a voice.

It's her innermost that wants this.

She sleeps.

-

Two days have passed since he had gone.

It was the first thought that came to her as she woke up. He was gone. And, soon, this bedroom, the house in whose eastern corner it sat, and the tiny garden outside with its gnarled old red hibiscus and the half grown mango tree they had planted together, all those would be gone as well. It was the strangest feeling ever.

For her, at least.

*

Therese-

I was taking in all the organs of my home, implanting them into my soul, when the bell rang. I ran to the door, my heart skipping beats; opened it and slapped the man standing in front of me. So hard that my hands stung. Then I kissed him. For a long time.

"Thought you needed some time alone" Curtis said afterwards.

The voice was wrong. He wasn't gone. And nor were the memories. Even though it had all of it right, all the judgements we make, the opinions we put forward, all our actions, all of them are played by our memories. What it didn't know was that those are the things which make us who we are. Humans. Who are more prone to hearing voices of love, rage, pity, compassion, trust and grief, than the voice of that one psychopathic sadist which lives in all of us.

Later that evening, I told Curtis "I think the voice is gone." And for some reason, he smiled.

*

The one-

Well, I lost.

Guess there are voices all around us, if we care to hear them. And it seems that the voice of her love sparked by those mementos, the voice of love from her memories is always more clearly heard than I am.

Memories and their emotions...

I fade.

*

Therese-

Well, there are a lot of things that haunt us flesh and blood creatures. My voice was one of those 'things' for me. But the thing is... they fear us too. They fear our hope.

I don't think I'm going to have memories of that voice. And I think I'm kinda glad that way. Even more glad that he came back. I think I always knew he hadn't left.

What am I?

A memory holder.

What will I be?

A memory.

-