The Voice

       It was late into the night when I heard the voice. I was lying in bed and had been for hours, one foot into the world of sleep and one foot into the world of the awake. I sat up, and for a moment, wasn’t sure which of the two worlds the voice had come from. The voice was soft, like the whisperings of a lover from across a pillow. I called out, but heard no reply. A cloak of silence descended upon the room once more. For several minutes I strained my ears, but I didn’t hear the voice again. My house was miles from town and I had no neighbors. I lived alone, my wife having moved out years before. When it was clear the silence would not relent, I rolled over and fell back to sleep.

           The voice spoke again a week later. It had been another sleepless night where I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, my thoughts on nothing in particular when I heard it speak. It said a single word. My name. I sat up in bed, my back as rigid as a board. Goosebumps ran across my arms and neck in waves.

           “Hello?” I called out. For many moments I sat, waiting, a cold sweat dampening my forehead.

           “James…”

           I rocketed out of bed, my feet hitting the cold floor. I rushed to the wall and pressed my hands to it, feeling the rough plaster beneath my fingers. I put my ear to it, like a seashell, desperate to hear it again.

           “James…”

           I gasped aloud and ran my hands further up the wall, as if I would be able to find the voice and capture it with my hands. I turned on the light and ran out of the bedroom door into the room next room, afraid I would see a person there, a stranger, standing in my house, whispering my name. I turned on the light and my eyes went black as they adjusted to the change. My hands flew to my face and for a moment I realized how vulnerable I was, standing in the doorway, blind, defenseless. I opened my eyes, expecting to see someone standing there, but the room was empty. I rushed back to my bedroom and put my ear to the wall again, but the voice was gone.

           The next morning, in the early hours of dawn, I called in sick to work. My hands trembled around my coffee mug. I hadn’t slept the entire night, but lay, with the lights on, in bed straining to hear the voice. I told myself it had been my imagination, that I was asleep and my mind was running wild, but I couldn’t convince myself. I paced my house in my bathrobe, too unsettled to stay in one room for long. I began to avoid my bedroom during the day, walking in the hallways around it, unwilling and unable to walk by my bedroom door. I slept on the couch with the radio on and tried to think thoughts to comfort me. I tried to imagine back to a time when I was still with my wife, when we were living here happily, before everything ended. After two nights of sleeping on the couch in the glow of the lamplight, I gathered up the courage and entered my bedroom. I kept the lights off, even though the darkness scared me, and lay down in bed atop the blankets. For a long while I lay there, my body stiff as a corpse but my eyes open, staring into the impenetrable darkness. I had found a flashlight in the basement and kept it with me, lying in my hand by my side.

           Sleep began to descend on me. I dreamed of rooms with talking walls and staircases that led to nowhere. Shadows with long fingers sprang across the room, dancing, their forms stretching bigger and bigger until they devoured any light.

           “James…”

           I sprang forward from the bed, out of the grasp of sleep. My heart hammered in my chest, like a bird fluttering madly in a cage. I put my hands to the wall again.

           “Who are you?” I asked. My voice trembled.

           “James…”

           “What do you want from me?” I was close to sobbing now, my voice desperate. Exhaustion and fear slept over me. I banged on the walls with my fists, my forehead grazing the cool surface.

           “Why, James?”

           I paused again, my breath caught in my throat. The voice was soft still, but there was desperation there and a deep sadness that stunned me. I blinked.

           “Why?” I echoed back, confused, breathless.

           But the voice was gone.

           The sun rose and fell once again. I had called in sick to work once more, telling my boss a family emergency had come up, I would need the week. As dusk descended, I sat at the end of my bed, waiting. I had been in the shed and found what I would need. I hadn’t slept in days, but it would end tonight. It would all end tonight.

           When the voice spoke in the darkness, I was ready. I grabbed my axe by my feet and threw it into the wall with every ounce of force I could muster. The plaster broke and gave way, falling to the floor in pieces. Dust rose from my feet and soon I was tearing away the wall with my bare hands, reaching into the darkness behind the dry wood, all the while the voice was whispering. I could hear it above the tearing of the plaster, above my own grunts and groans of labor.

           “Why, James?”

           I took the axe and drove it into the wall again, but the voice would not be silenced.

           “Why did you do it, James?”

           A weak stream of moonlight came in through the windows, casting light on the wall. I kicked away the wall with my legs. I didn’t care if the house swallowed me whole. I didn’t care if I went tumbling into the darkness and was never seen again. I would take the voice with me and neither god nor man would ever hear from either of us again.

           “Why? Why did you do it, James?”

           The light cast its rays onto the wall where the pearl white shines in the ash, a heap in the darkness.

           “Why, James? Why? Why?”

           I kept tearing apart the walls, throwing pieces of plaster to the ground, my hands bloody, my clothes coated in dust.

           -Stop, don’t-

           -“I’m leaving”- tears in her eyes - a suitcase packed - me begging, tears, hands gripping her sundress. She met someone else. She was going, she couldn’t be persuaded to stay. Angry tears – screaming -please, please, please, please PLEASE -

           How I didn’t realize the rolling pin was in my hands until it was too late-how streaks of red sprayed the wall - how she fell, deflated like a rag doll to the floor-

“Why, James?”

           “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

           -shoving the body into the wall and rebuilding it- plaster and paint over the patches of drywall-

           I was in the wall, breathing in the dust and debris, the bones shone like pearls in the dust, the empty eye sockets staring at me, a tattered sundress, the colors fading.

           “Why? Why? Why? Why? Why! Why! WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY”

           “Shut up!” I roared and threw my fists into the post, kicking, screaming, roaring, demanding silence, but the voice was louder now, screaming, filling my ears with the sound. I kicked the post harder again and when the crack ran through the wood I kicked it until it split in two. The wood, half eaten away by the maggots, now tumbled easily under the force and the wall came down in seconds, sending up debris and dust in its wake. The load bearing wall crumbled like damp paper and the house caved in on itself, silencing our voices as it succumbed to the darkness.