Can You Hear That?

Whispered voices filled her ears.

"Shhh....I'm listening."

"You shhh...I'm talking."

"Both of you shhh....you're not adding anything of importance."

"EVERYBODY SHHH! I'm trying to concentrate."

"Concentrate on what?"

She looked at the closing garage door and tried to decide if the whispered fighting was happening on the other side of the door or in the garage. She couldn't see who was doing the whispering, but that was nothing new, she had heard voices that weren't attached to bodies her entire life.

For the most part it didn't bother her. She had gotten fairly good at tuning them out. But they were always there. When she was younger she had tried a lot of things to make them quieter. Ear plugs, drugs, an exorcism. The ear plugs only muffled them and that was more annoying than hearing them talk. The drugs flattened all of her other senses as well. So not just hearing, but thinking and feeling were more difficult. And when she realized that food didn't taste as good that was that. The exorcism was interesting, but the priest had finally come to the conclusion that the demons did not reside inside her and suggested therapy. Which is where the drugs had come from so she declined.

Instead she just tried her best to ignore them all.

Today they weren't making it easy. They had been fighting all day. But controlled fighting. That whisper tone thing that parents used with their kids in church, or the library, or a movie. Where you are whispering and yelling at the same time. It was actually kind of annoying, but she had to admit it was better than when they all actually yelled at each other.

She had also tried to ask them to be quiet. To stop talking to her. She got no answer. It took a few times of trying to engage with them to realize that though she could hear them, they could not hear her.

It was like living with the television on all the time. Background people living their lives without the laugh track. But she couldn't change the channel. She couldn't interact with them. She couldn't do anything but listen.

"Shhh....you heard that right?"

"Everyone needs to keep quiet. Please. I'm trying my best."

"Shhh...listen. Try to focus for a minute."

Okay, so the voices are definitely on this side of the garage door. So that meant they would probably be following her inside. She had hoped that they were in the alley. She might have gotten a little peace if they had been outside and nobody else was talking in the living room. That did happen. She didn't want to make it seem like there were always voices. Sometimes it was quiet. But when it wasn't, she couldn't make it happen. So today she would have the whisper fighters she guessed.

She went in to the living room and sat down. She was reading a really good book and was hopeful that if she got lost in that story the voices would sort of fade away. She didn't like the whispering. To be honest it was kind of creeping her out.

"What should we do?"

"Be quiet. Keep still. Shhh...."

"I really have to pee."

*giggles*

"You have to hold it. Please...shhh..."

The hairs on her arm lifted. Why in the world would she feel afraid now? The voices had never scared her before. Even when she was little. Or when they were yelling at each other. They weren't real enough to be scary. They were real. She knew that. But not really real. She had tried to explain it to her doctor. She knew she wasn't just imagining the voices. That they were coming from...well she didn't know where but it wasn't inside her head. If they were inside her head the ear plugs wouldn't have muffled them. And if they were inside her head the people she had met in her life who also could hear the voices wouldn't have been able to.

Oh yes, she wasn't the only one in the world who heard the voices. Now, to be fair, a lot of the people that heard them were considered crazy by most of society. But if you almost constantly heard disembodied voices it might make you a little nuts too. She wasn't sure why it hadn't affected her like that. Or maybe it had and she just didn't realize it. Did you know if you were going crazy? Or was that part of being crazy, that you didn't know?

"Shhh, sweetheart, just shhh..."

The whispering was quieter now. They weren't arguing with each other anymore, just trying to keep everyone quiet. She could hear something else as well. She tried to focus in. Sometimes that helped. She could sometimes hear things other than the voices. Like street noises. Or a phone ringing. Echoes of another life. That's how she thought of it.

What was she hearing? It was steady. Like a drum beat. A thumping. Could it be? Really? A heartbeat?

She leaned forward toward the sound and put her hand on her own chest. Trying to match the rhythm. Yes, it was a heartbeat. She could hear someone's heart beating. Pounding really.

"shhhh...."

She was so focused on listening to the heartbeat and the soft whispers that the first scream made her scream as well.

The screaming kept on for a long time. She tried covering her ears but it was too loud. Different screams from each of the whisperers. They weren't whispering now. Not at all.

She could hear the pounding again. Louder this time. More frantic. She realized it was her own heart this time. Panicking.

She tried to calm herself. She couldn't have helped them even if she had known what was going on. They couldn't hear her. She couldn't see them. She could only hear them. And hear the echoes of the screams ringing in her ears now. The whispering stopped.

Except...what was that?

She heard it again. Soft. Barely a noise really.

"I see you."

Her eyes widened...

"You. I see you. Shhh....."

The voices had never really scared her.

Before.