The Wings that Whisper

It followed him wherever he went. The sound of it constantly touching his ears. Like a mosquito on a hot summer night that won’t let you sleep. Except bigger. He knew it wasn’t there. But it hated that he knew, and it followed him. Stepping on his heels when he walked. Snagging the elbow of his sweatshirt, making an invisible itch he had to swat at like a bug bite that would go away as soon as you thought about it.

It had been too long since he slept without it’s voice telling him lies and pain that stirred him. Kept him awake and made him sweat. Rolling back and forth until he forgot what sleep felt like. 

If he had to explain it it was the flapping of razor sharp wings, and pain. A darkness in the corner of your vision that vanished when you looked for it. It was never there when he looked for it, but it still spoke. It whispered to him.

When he left his apartment it clung closely to his ear, to make him restless and murmur to him. It wanted to be the closest thing to him, to hold his ear and convince him he forgot to wash breakfast off his chin, and the words he said hadn’t made sense, the joke he gave wasn’t funny.

Over time, he started to feel crazy, misremembering things, according to the voice no one liked him, but they were nice, and they put up with him. The voice got louder, the fluttering of the things wings chased him from his apartment down the sidewalk, he weaved in and out of  the people who couldn't hear it.

So many days without breathing freely, so many nights without sleeping easy. A twisted stomach from worry and dread. You can only take so much before a figment of a thought shows up.

First it’s like a pinprick at the back of your mind. Then it swirls, like a drop of blood in the water, becoming bigger, looking more stretched out. Until one day you can’t sleep, you are twisted in your sheets and your in pain. Your eyes hurt and you are very certain you can feel the essence of your soul crying inside you.

The new thought will reveal itself like a solid apparition.

You don’t want to live anymore.

He walked the sidewalks, entered the stores, wondering how so many people could live out their days like everything was fine with the fluttering wings of the voice was always just beyond his vision. Just in the corner of his eye, just close enough to ruffle his hair, just powerful enough to make him curl into himself, fumble for words, and drop things clumsily.

Now that his mind had fully decided his fate he no longer spent his time daydreaming about the future, instead he dreamt about the end. The last page of his story, the final note of his song.

Focusing on his footsteps, and how the chill bit his cheeks and fingers. Cold sunk into his boots through the concrete sidewalk. His tired bones echoed creaks and the sounds of his exhaustion rung in his ears. Always feeling the vast emptiness of being surrounded by endless people he didn’t know, and didn’t have the energy to talk to.

It didn’t even need to tell him how he was, it didn’t need to whisper, or yell. It was just there watching him slip. It planted seeds in his ears and darkness grew in them, it sat back to watch its work manifest so physically in him. 

Sharp thoughts like knives that were his own but didn’t seem to belong to him, they were there and they weren’t.

The time was late, his apartment was dark, his torn up bed mocked him and his inability to sleep. The light from the city highlighted everything that was wrong, every painful corner of his life stood out and glared back at him. Words in his voice told him over and over to make it hurt, make something hurt, anything. It craved the pain of steel and rope and angry glass. 

Such a leap from the fluttering whispers that had been there before, the faint misunderstandings of interactions, and thoughts. The difference between then and now was written in bags under his eyes, a leaner body, and his shaking hands. What a difference tiny thoughts make when they are said over and over every day.

Quietly, slowly he moved around his space. Seeking out something to complete a task, something to bring an end to it, and give him back his own quiet head. His heart was beating so hard it hurt, he was going to be sick, his heartbeat in his fingertips as he found what he needed and lifted it coldly to his head. Just a simple thing, to stop the pain. Bring an end to the cycle. Save him from the painful, sleepless nights, and the long, exhaustive days. He could not do even one more, this was the end of it. This was it. He would rather die than try to live another second. He held it to his head and shook.

“I need help.”

Then the voice on the other end of the phone responded. It was so unlike the things that had been repeated in his head for so long. The quiet kindness tortured and soothed him.

“It’s going to be ok.”

“Is it?” He cried then. He kept crying. He cried later, and he kept crying. Until one day. It stopped being so hard.

Walking outside, into the quiet blanket of snow over his city, he looked up. The whipping winged creature of his mind's own design followed him, but at a distance, it would speak, and he may listen, he may be hurt, he may stop to catch his breath because of how it struck him when the voice told him what he was doing wrong.

But some days there was a peace in him.