The Voice in My Head

Prompt: Center your story around someone trying to resist their darker impulses-and they’ll either succeed or fail.

The Voice in My Head

There is an incessant voice chatting inside my head.  No matter how I try to block it out it keeps bantering falsehoods and urging me to do things I do not want to do. The more I try to ignore it, the louder and nastier it gets.  I try to keep myself preoccupied focusing on the task at hand. It actually helps, but the effort depletes me of most of my energy.  I am not sure how this really started. The voice became louder not long after my estrangement from my family and friends. At first I thought it was my inner conscious shaming me for leaving my family. But I was wrong in that assessment because the words from the voice were sinister and dark. 

I trembled at the words that were spewing from the voice. Whenever I would walk down the city street, I made sure I would look down at the sidewalk. Once I made the mistake of looking up at a woman. Seeing her hazel-colored eyes I burned with raging anger. The voice told me to hurt her. “Make her feel pain because she is so pretty and full of herself.” I discreetly caused the woman to stumble, causing her to fall directly on her face. A passerby seeing her on the ground called for medical assistance. I glanced back as the good Samaritan helped her up revealing her bloodied face and broken nose. From that point on I avoided eye contact with anyone. I fear that if I did not, a bitter, horrifying rage will be unleashed upon that person.  I shudder to think what more I would have done to this woman had this not been a public walkway.

Just by looking at me I would seem like a friendly normal person. I look well kempt; no distinguishing features that set me apart from anyone else; nothing ostentatious about my clothes or how I carried myself. I was by physical standards “normal.”  I could carry on a normal conversation. I even held various jobs when the voice became louder and louder inside my head. 

It has been these last few weeks, however, the voice in my head was so strong my body fell under its control. It directed me to do despicable things. Initially, I would look for a feral cat or rabbit. I would trap the animal and then out of the view from prying eyes I would skin the animal alive. The voice would say “Good. Make it suffer, just as you are suffering now. Slowly dismember it, piece by piece until the creature dies.” I obeyed the voice and did as I was instructed to do mechanically, with no feeling and with no regret. I saw the reflection of my face in a puddle close to my executioner’s table. My lips were frozen in a sardonic, twisted smile like one would see on a Halloween mask.

For a short while the bloodletting calmed me. I regained focus. The respite from the badgering, hostile words gave me time to seek out some kind of professional help. I scoured the internet but could not find a therapist or psychologist locally that could take me on short notice.  I decided to take a different approach to look for treatments with schizophrenia, PTSD, psychotic behavior.  My search turned up local support groups, but only one of them caught my eye. It was named “sociopaths united.”  Could this term “sociopath” reflect who I am? I had to learn more. A group was meeting this very evening at the old basilica which had closed its doors to worship years ago. Now it was a community retreat owned by the city that would lease meeting rooms to various organizations.

The meeting was scheduled for 9:00pm. I thought that was an unusual hour on a week night for a meeting. The room was located on the second floor in what used to be the music room for the large pipe organ once used. Once I opened the door, a powerful odor penetrated my nostrils that startled me. The smell was a combination of cinnamon, pumpkin, dried blood, and decomposing flesh.  It quickly dissipated once I closed the door.  No one had arrived yet. The chairs were arranged in a circle for some twenty people. In the middle of the chair array was a metal table. It reminded me something like a coroner’s autopsy table with raised edges and corners with holes that allow for the runoff of fluids from a body. I took a breath and seated myself into a chair.  A moment later other people entered the room one after the other. No one said anything as they took a seat in the circle of chairs. No acknowledgement was made to my presence as a newcomer. There was nothing outwardly sinister seeing these people. Men and women pulled out of ordinary life to attend this gathering.

Some time had passed before a voice started to address the group. To my horror it was the same voice that haunted my mind! It went on to say “You are my servants who I have chosen to do my work in this world. I command you to do things that reek misery, havoc, and pain upon this pathetic world. More of your kind will be coming forward when the voice inside their heads prompts them, urging them to carry out their anxieties, their frustrations, pouring out their hatred upon others. The time has come for you to share your most recent act of servitude to the cause.”

One by one the gatherers in the circle took turns sharing their evil acts perpetrated upon other human beings. One man smiled when he said he knifed his neighbor’s dog because of its endless barking.  Another man took delight sharing his account describing his lewd behavior with an unsuspecting college woman. One woman detailed her efforts to poison her elderly grandmother because she was such a burden. Another woman who discovered that her husband was cheating on her slashed the woman’s car tires. A man sitting on my left shared his story of how he embezzled thousands of dollars from the company he works. Then the voice said, “These are fine works. Now we must engage in more serious acts.  My brothers and sisters united in pure abhorrence, look to acts of perpetrating extreme pain, torture and even death upon your victims. We must be witnesses to a new generation. We transcend the old code of the law from “lex talionis” or eye for an eye, to ‘my way is the right way, accept it or die! If you do not, they will end up killing you! Anarchy is what we strive to save yourselves! There will be millions more to follow you immersed in their anger and rage. They cry out for revenge!” The voice finished its ranting.

Now it was my turn in the group. I was so conflicted. A part of me wanted to relish in the debauchery, hatred, and evil coming from the voice. Yet deep within my heart my conscience stirred. How could I destroy others? I was not wired to be a murderer. Or am I? I threw up my arms in despair and fled the room in utter panic. I wanted no part in disorder, world chaos or anarchy!  

I ran toward the old sanctuary into a storage room that housed some of the old religious artifacts. The only light that came into the room was from a very small window. That light shone directly onto a large cross once hung for worshippers to see. On that cross hung a man horribly disfigured, streaks of blood dripping from his head, and the side was marked in blood stains from where the body was pierced.  

The image of the crucified man was horrifying. Tears welled up in my eyes. Bloodlust caused this man to suffer.  Who did this to the man? I reflected on my own evil actions. My depravity caused others to suffer much pain. I am so sorry for the horrible things I have done. Release me of this voice; release me of my despicable urges to inflict hurt and pain on others. I felt overwhelmed by this. I cried. I was pleading for release of this voice. Was this my demon? I sobbed most of the night until I fell asleep. When I awoke the sun was shining through the window.  I no longer heard that voice.  The man on the cross shone brilliantly from the sun’s rays.  Who was this man? Why am I no longer tormented by the voice? How do I find out more about the life of this man? For the first time in many months, I felt at peace within my head, within my heart.

Jesus the Nazarene, a man thoroughly accredited by God to you—the miracles and wonders and signs that God did through him are common knowledge—this Jesus, following the deliberate and well-thought-out plan of God, was betrayed by men who took the law into their own hands, and was handed over to you. And you pinned Him to a cross and killed him. But God untied the death ropes and raised him up. Death was no match for Him. (Acts 2:22-23, Message)

Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. (Philippians 4:7-8, NLT)

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, (Romans 8:1, NIV)

Without out Jesus, what is the voice saying in your head?

Author: Pete Gautchier

Acknowledgement: Reedsy Prompts

NIV=New International Version

NLT=New Living Translation