Oh, the silence, I cannot stand the silence, the silence which has seeped into my brain and driven me to do what I normally would not—no—what I normally can’t do and I must keep it away before it overcomes me again, yes;

but they are gone, all of them gone because I wanted them gone ever since I was younger, but I don’t want them gone now, no, because I need them, oh, how I need them, those voices that remind me that I am not insane, that I am a normal person;

although maybe that’s why Derek cheated on me because I was normal, so painfully average in everything I did—never “great,” not even “good,” just normal, a C student; could be prettier, not quite overweight, okay in bed; average cook, kept house fairly enough, had middle-of-the-line things; did only fine at my job, made a median salary, did not really stand out;

but with Derek gone I realized that I needed to change, and the voices, those voices in my head that I ignored for so long that told me to do this and that—they grew louder until it became hard to block them out:

the loudest one was a woman’s voice—like a middle-aged woman who doesn’t take shit or dole it out–the one telling me I could stand to lose a little weight so I decided that maybe that advice wasn’t so bad—I mean, the girl Derek cheated on me with was pretty skinny and maybe that was what he felt he was lacking in our relationship (among other things, probably) and so I listened and I worked out and dieted and did everything I could; and at first it was hard to lose weight, only a couple pounds in the first few months but then it melted away as I started taking up jogging and eating more veggies until my stomach was finally flat and my muscles defined—not too much but just enough; and then the voice was gone, it did not bug me to lose weight anymore, I guess it was happy;

then the next one was the one telling me to buy new clothes to show off my new body—a gay man who kept complimenting me on my firm calves and insisting that I get something to pump up my breasts a little more because they’re not as big as they should be and everyone loves boobs—and I tried to go out and get some nice clothes but it wasn’t in my budget;

and that’s where this next voice came in, the hard-hitting business man type voice that told me to get a better job, which would be so much easier because now I have a better body and then the gay one said that all I need to do is get a new set of nice interview clothes and I’m pretty much in, so I did just that and I looked around for a better paying job and I found one; on my new budget I could afford some actual designer clothing which looked really good on me—all my girlfriends agreed and they were envious and asked me how I found the motivation, that usually girls lose their will when they are betrayed by boyfriends, husbands, lovers—you know, that whole crying over a pint of ice cream thing, which I, in truth, had done; but I never told them about the voices, never, because then they would have thought I was insane but I’m not because those voices weren’t telling me to burn things or kill people, and besides the no-nonsense woman and the gay man had been gone for a while so even if I was insane I was getting better, right?;

the hard hitting business man was telling me to work harder at my new job, that if I didn’t work twice—no, three times as hard as any other worker that I would be expendable and in this economy they would lay me off just like that, so I worked harder and harder and got lots of praise and raise and I even once won a sort of employee of the month award;

meanwhile, an instructive and sort of overly pleasant woman’s voice kept telling me that I should decorate my apartment better, that so much can be done with so little and I should really invest in some decent furnishings and maybe some artwork here and there because a residence reflects upon the mind of a woman and that a lack of decorations is boring and I don’t want to be boring, do I? so I took some classes in interior decoration and I went through the metal stage and the glass stage and the Far East stage and it took me a while to finally settle on something that I really liked;

and it was getting harder to meet up with my girlfriends because I was working so much and taking classes on top of that and doing homework and working out so much, but I met with them every so often still over coffee or lunch or something and we would talk, and once I even showed them my house and they were impressed and asked me to decorate their homes—I agreed and I helped them and I wonder if they’ve still kept all the decorations I suggested they buy—they kept asking me how I managed to do such a complete turnaround because, to be honest, they thought that, in the Derek days, I was sort of stagnating but they never wanted to tell me—I was more tempted to tell them about the voices because now the business man and the overly pleasant woman were gone too and maybe they wouldn’t think me quite as crazy as they would have before, but I decided against it because who wants to hear about voices in someone’s head anyway? even if they are disappearing one-by-one;

then there was this young guy’s voice and it sounded like he loved fun and speed, especially speed because he thought I really ought to get the best of the best sports car and I always loved sports cars like Jaguars or Lamborghinis and hey! it would be totally cool to own a Lamborghini Diablo, but my budget wasn’t big enough to get one so I started looking for other jobs, but the jobs in my field that would pay well enough to be able to buy one of those suckers had super-high standards so I got the boob job—hey, I needed a little competitive edge—bought new clothes that were only the best designers in Europe and spent hours in the morning making my makeup and my hair and my attire perfect but all that hard work paid off and I finally got a really amazing job that paid seven figures so I wasted no time in buying a Lamborghini Diablo, not a yellow one—good god yellow is ugly—I got a silver one and when I first touched it I got goosebumps;

I was feeling kind of guilty that I couldn’t share this with my girlfriends and that I hadn’t seen them in a long time or even just sent them an email, and then there was this one old woman’s voice—the one that sounded kind of like the crazy cat lady in my neighborhood when I was growing up—that said that I had moved on and was now above my friends and that associating with them would just bring me down, in fact having any sort of girlfriends would either just demean me or make me seem too arrogant because at this point there was no gray area, people were either above me or below me and I should know exactly where my place was in the world or else I would be kicked out of Olympus—so I bought a new phone and did not transfer their numbers and got rid of my instant messenger screen name and my personal email; and once I had done all that the old lady wasn’t talking any more, which relieved me because the crazy cat lady in my neighborhood had always made me really nervous;

it was pretty hard to keep up with all the voices, they all demanded things of me that I often felt like I couldn’t do but eventually I did them, and when I did them the voices just stopped talking to me, probably because they had nothing else to say now that I was actually listening to them and that was kind of funny to me in short bursts so I would laugh at the most random times, which made people stare sometimes, but I didn’t care because I got the joke and if they didn’t that was their problem;

it was a long time, many, many years and I lost track of the exact amount because I never really celebrated my birthday or Christmas or New Year’s or anything like that anymore and who needs holidays anyway? besides, I would have just been bored if I took holidays off because all I would be doing would be sitting at home;

but eventually I was down to one voice, a little girl’s voice, and I don’t remember exactly what she wanted because she spoke so softly even if she was persistent, but whatever it was she wanted I did it and I had finally reached silence, absolute and utter silence;

I didn’t like it because it was with me day and night and wouldn’t leave me alone, kind of like the feeling that someone was watching me;

so I tried to get the voices to come back, I tried messing up my apartment suite and I was evicted and I ripped my clothes and I got piss-drunk and trashed my car and I even got fired from my job but the voices would not come back after all that, in fact, no matter what I did they wouldn’t come back, it was like I killed them when I was listening to them instead of making them quiet down a little and I feel like a murderer, a filthy criminal for doing that to them and I’m so sorry;

but sometimes I would hear a little snippet of a voice here and there but it came from someone else, so I figured maybe the voices just moved to different places and I could gather them all together and get them to talk to me again that everything would be alright that I wouldn’t be a murderer; I went to all those Someone Elses and took them home with me, but they tried to leave so I had to tie them up in my room—but then they didn’t want the voices to speak again to me, they wanted to keep them for themselves so I made them release the voices, I made them talk all the time; but there was always something wrong with the voices that they released, something a little off—maybe to sound right they needed the others, so I looked for all the others and brought them back to my mind as I found them;

though one day before I could find all of the other voices, one of the voices stopped speaking and I tried to get her to speak again but she wouldn’t, but I didn’t give up, even after she tried making me go away by making this really bad smell; and her rebellion encouraged the others because they stopped talking too and started smelling bad which made me really angry so I kicked them and hit them and pinched them and bit them but they still wouldn’t talk and the silence got worse;

and then the sirens interrupted the voices, and the angry men knocked me to the ground and tried to put cold metal around my wrists and they made my voices sound different; so I fought for my voices, I fought so hard for my voices and put three of the angry men on the ground; but there were too many of them and they put that cold metal around my wrists and put a sharp pain in my arm and then I don’t remember much after that;

but I woke up and now it is silent and my arms are all tied up and the room is white and plushy and I can’t see a door and I am calling out to the voices telling them what I did for them and asking them if they are happy because I took their advice and met their expectations and it made me happy; but they are so cruel because they aren’t answering me even though I know they’re still there;

oh, the silence, I cannot stand the silence, the silence which has seeped into my brain and driven me to do what I normally would not—no—what I normally can’t do and I must keep it away before it overcomes me again, yes;

but they are gone, all of them gone because I wanted them gone ever since I was younger, but I don’t want them gone now, no, because I need them, oh, how I need them, those voices that remind me that I am not insane, that I am a normal person

About the author

Meg is one who mourns for the loss when the Muse is absent; no other sorrow feels deeper. She is one who elates when the Muse is present, guiding her mind; no other joy feels greater. In short, Meg is a sucker.