The Voice

I have constantly wondered about the voice, but I never actually got to asking anyone about it. One friend volunteered once that he never had any voices in his head. And I wonder, what does he hear when all is silent?

The thing is, she’s been with me for as long as I can remember. With me ..in me..?I don’t know.  But I do know that for the life that has been my adulthood, never has she lied to me. She is more honest and truthful than I myself can be with myself. And all the times that I have defied her in disbelief, I have lost the battles.

I call her “she” because of her motherly inclination to protect me, so like I would protect my children. All she has ever whispered in my quick were premonitions about people. And she has a particular way of making herself loud and clear. She only whispers when all are dead silent. Between wakefulness and sleep, just that second when consciousness starts washing away my slumber in the early morning, or even in my sleep sometimes, I would hear her. She would warn or foretell, and I would be taken over by awe for a few minutes.

As we grew up together, our connection has evolved, she and I. It has gone through all stages of denial, disbelief, and defiance. And finally, I have succumbed to the conviction that yes…she might just know better.

When she called last, I had hardly started to hear the early tweets. And before my eyes embraced light, she told me to run.

My conviction of her has grown in control, to a point where I don’t even look for omens of her truthfulness. As if in complete and utter surrender to my faith, I respond. I sat up in bed with an urge to sprint and run. But how do you run from a name?

She told me of a name that will cause me pain and much regret. And that the only way to safety is to run. I wished, not for the first time, that she would lie, that all I could hear inside my head every morning was the bustle of reminders of chores to be done and errands to be run, like regular housewives. But no…I had to hear premonitions about names in my life, and live with the consequences of being gifted for it. My gift is my curse.

And then I have to face up to the real world, and answer questions about being a weird personality, who was just so friendly yesterday, but all of a sudden she shuns and runs. I can only imagine his sneer, if he ever hears of it: my voice told me to!

When will she herald love? When will she whisper to me to run to, not from? If she were a woman, this omniscient of mine, I would straighten this out with her. With all the obedience she owes me, she ought to look up something good to foretell, just for once. She would know that, for all the running I’ve done in my life, I owe it to myself, as she to me, to be rewarded someday, with the fruit I’ve been forbidden.

And I wonder if that day is ever coming.