I was lying in my warm bed when a familiar voice called out to me. As I woke up a little, I was disturbed by the sun shining in my eyes. I tried to get away from the sun by moving my head slightly to the side, but it didn’t work. The sun was doing everything it could to wake me up. I didn’t want to get up, I buried my face in the pillow and pouted slightly. I had to get up, there was no way around it. I lifted my head and looked up at the dark sky, not a cloud in sight. The endless dark sky swallowed everything. I threw off the blanket and sat up, my dangling feet touching the floor. I saw my favorite book on the nightstand.
“You’re going to be late for school, get dressed and go downstairs.”
I realized then that my mother was calling me from out of the room. I got out of bed and moved towards the door, a feeling of uneasiness overtaking me. Instead of giving me peace, her voice made me uneasy. When I left the room, I looked around, my mother’s voice was too far away to be heard in these rooms. Without wasting time with these rooms, I headed straight for the stairs.
“Are you still in bed?”
Her voice was coming from the kitchen. After the last step, I was walking past the living room to the back of the stairs. I would see her in a few steps. When I got to the door, I saw her at the counter preparing something. As I stepped into the kitchen, she noticed me and turned around.
“Didn’t I tell you to get dressed? Don’t go downstairs with your. -”
When my mother saw me, she didn’t continue. When she saw me in front of her, I could see in her eyes that she was waiting for someone else. She looked at me and looked me up and down. When she looked into my eyes, she accepted that the person she was waiting for was not coming. I was standing at the door, and she was standing at the counter looking at each other. Something inside me was screaming at me that something was wrong. She was my mother, the person closest to me, yet she seemed so far away.
Finally, my mother broke the silence and called out to me. “Why are you pretending I’m not here?”
“Because I’m having trouble remembering you.”
She took a step closer to me. “I’ve always been on your side.”
“Is that so?”
One step closer. “You know that I’ve always been with you, Theodore.”
This word I heard reached the very depths of my mind. All the doors were wide open, and my mind was clear. I could hear that magic word from every corner of my mind. Wherever I looked, wherever I went, I heard it. I would go to the farthest place to avoid hearing it, but it made no sense. It was coming with me. I had nowhere to run. Even in the farthest place in the world, one could not escape from oneself. What a pity that the voices in his head would not leave him alone and made him writhe in pain. Everywhere I looked, everything I heard was him. This reality hit me like a slap in the face. There was no me in this life.
All the people I knew, all the people I didn’t know were calling out to me. I could only stare at the opposite wall as my ears rang. I was sitting on the sofa in my room, in the dark, listening to the voices. What was all this for? It couldn’t have been for nothing. I had been through so much. Everything was for a new life. A life without problems… I tried and tried to make my life better each time.
“Shut up already!” The voices filling my ears were getting on my nerves. I could no longer keep silent against them. “I said shut up, shut up!”
I grabbed the edge of the table in front of me and threw it aside with all my might. With a loud crash, it hit the single seat and toppled over. A few crunches came from his feet. I couldn’t think clearly, I couldn’t do anything with so many voices in my head. There was no way to silence them. They kept acting the way they wanted inside my head, causing me pain. Every passing second was torture. I couldn’t take it anymore and covered my ears with my hands. I wanted the voices to stop. I wanted to get rid of them. I fell to my knees. The voices wouldn’t go away. They were with me every moment.
“Shut up. Shut up! Please… shut up.”
They didn’t hear me in all the noise. They didn’t see me even though I was among them. I was right next to them, but they didn’t notice me. They didn’t know what state I was in. I was melting in front of them and they didn’t care.
As I fell to the ground I heard a different voice. I didn’t know if it was real or not. I slowly relaxed my hands. I was having trouble distinguishing what was real and what wasn’t. I tried to hear the voice once more. There was a knock on the door. I raised my head and looked down the hallway. There was the knocking again, this time longer than the others.
“Are you there?”
Veronica… She was completely out of my mind. I stood up. As I made my way to the door, I felt the voices in my head fade. Veronica had come to rescue me. I was almost at the door when she stopped ringing the bell. When I got to the front door she started talking.
“I hope you can hear me. All this time I’ve been fooling myself arguing with you…” I put my hand out to open the door. “You were right, Theodore…”
I grabbed the doorknob and let go. The reality I had just tried to escape from had once again found me. I was living my life like a blind man in this game my mind was playing on me. The truth was right in front of my eyes, and I couldn’t see what was happening. Was all this the result of my troubled life?
“You’re right behind the door, aren’t you? I heard the sound you made.” There was a short silence. I wasn’t going to open the door. She wasn’t my savior. It had to be an illusion. “I understand you didn’t open it, I’m sorry. My mom and dad keep not seeing me no matter what I do. They will always be my family, but I told myself that I won’t see them if they don’t see me. I can understand you now. I’m probably too late for everything…”
I didn’t know what to do anymore, I couldn’t take a step forward, I couldn’t take a step back. What Veronica said was one of the last things I cared about. I didn’t give a damn whether I was right or not. What did it mean to be right when my life was a lie? To have someone else’s name spoken every time she called me…
“If you are still there, please listen to me… My mom kept thinking she was going to be on a TV show. She finally lost her mind and was hospitalized. My father is his usual self. I’ve been feeling very lonely lately…”
Veronica kept talking on her own. The voices in my head were getting louder. They kept saying that word. Veronica kept talking. I couldn’t run anywhere. No one would come to save me. I started to crouch in front of the door. I could hear Veronica talking. It wasn’t enough to drown out the voices.
I couldn’t tell how much time had passed. Veronica was gone, she was gone. I was sitting alone in the darkness.
And there were voices.