Work Text:
The rising sun woke me, its reddish light spilling through the window above my desk. The harsh, fiery light beat against my closed eyelids. My head ached. It could not have been more than an hour or two since I had finally succumbed to sleep, slumped over my desk, my cheek pressed against the open pages of my journal. The notebook was half-filled with my cramped, messy handwriting. I had another dozen tucked away in a box in the closet. The handwriting might be mine, but the words were not.
There had been too many sleepless nights. It was hard enough, working seventy or eighty hours a week, without spending what little free time I had scribbling furiously, trying to keep up with the never-ending river of words that flowed unbidden into my mind. I had not even arrived home until after midnight. I had made myself a cup of chamomile tea, hoping I would be able to get some sleep, but she had started speaking to me again, her voice calm and clear and unrelenting. So I had pulled out my notebook and faithfully recorded the words, writing until my eyes burned and my hand cramped and my back ached. Finally I had been unable to keep my eyes open any longer.
So here I was. My automatic coffeemaker beeped as it switched on, and the sweet, blessed smell of coffee suffused the apartment. I breathed it in and felt a little more alive. It’s getting worse, I thought. For once there was no answer.
It was five-thirty on a Tuesday morning, and I had to be in court at nine.
***
I couldn’t remember a time I had not heard her. It had never occurred to me, as a child, that there was anything odd or wrong about hearing a voice that no one else could hear. She was my best friend and my ever-present companion. I did not always understand what she said, but I listened all the same. My parents and teacher hadn’t worried, at least at first. They had simply thought I had an imaginary friend, like any ordinary kid. Then, as time had passed, they had grown concerned, but assured each other and themselves that I was just going through a phase, and it would pass. It had not passed, and then there had been parent-teacher conferences, and a succession of patronizing psychologists, and finally the institution.
My parents had driven me there, refusing at first to tell me where we were going. My mother had explained, tearfully, that they loved me and were only doing what was best for me. I never understood why locking me up helped me at all. I tried rational arguments, both my own and hers; I tried crying and pleading with them to take me home; finally I tried screaming at them, calling them cruel and saying that I hated them. Against my parents and the composed, condescending head psychiatrist, none of these strategies were effective.
***
After I drank two cups of coffee and ate a granola bar, I felt awake enough to face the day. I pulled on my clothes and running shoes, grabbed my iPod, and was out the door. I set off at a jog, quickly picking up speed. The music pounded in my ears, the beat fast and strong.
I ran every morning, no matter how exhausted or busy I was. Sometimes it felt like it was the only thing that kept me sane. I had picked up the habit in high school, when I discovered that her voice never spoke to me when I was running, or perhaps I simply couldn’t hear her over the sound of my own heartbeat.
It wasn’t that I wanted the voice to go away. She had counseled me through my tumultuous adolescent years, through college and law school, through a job that paid well but was slowly destroying my soul. The thought of being alone in my own head forever was frightening. Still, it was nice to have a few moments to myself each day.
***
At first, when my parents brought me to the institution, to that white-walled prison, I had not known whether to scream or cry. They had shown me to my room, and I had followed along silently, too shocked to ask questions. The rules were unreasonably harsh and rigid, as if we were ill-behaved monkeys they were trying to train. The voice advised me to do as I was told. If I followed the rules, if I pretended that the voice was gone, surely they would let me go.
I insisted to the psychiatrist that I had never heard any voice, that I had just made it up to get attention, and that he should let me go immediately. He didn’t listen, of course, just prescribed me medication that the nurses forced me to take. It made my head feel like it was stuffed with wool. It did nothing to take away her voice.
So I told him that the medication was working, that I would take it every day if he would only let me leave. He ignored me again, making notes on his pad. He said that he had heard it all before, that plenty of patients insisted they were better, only to relapse once they were released. This seemed absurd to me, of course; why was he judging me by what other people had done? I said this aloud. He just made more notes.
My parents came to visit the next week. I told them about the new medication, claimed that it was working. This was everything they had ever hoped for. They were blinded by their love for me and their desperate wish for me to be, finally, a normal child. They overruled the psychiatrist and took me home. I flushed the medication down the toilet every day and never told anyone else about the voice in my head. Soon after that, I joined the high school track team.
***
When I got home, I had a new voicemail message. It was from Naomi, an old friend of mine from law school. We hadn’t spoken in years. She was working for a nonprofit now, I thought. They had something to do with reforming the government and fighting for civil liberties. When I had started law school, I had planned to go into public service, but the tuition had put me so far in debt that I had had no choice but to take a firm job to pay it off. I had managed to do so within about five years, a feat which was only possible because I lived a relatively frugal life, if any life in New York could be called frugal. Even after I had paid off the debt, it had seemed simpler to stay where I was.
Naomi did not say what she was calling about. I put it from my mind and got ready for work. Call her back, the voice said, as I was standing in the subway. I would have called her at some point, of course, as it would have been rude not to. I could hardly call her from inside the subway, of course. I will, I thought back. I have to work now.
The voice left me alone, as it usually did when I was with other people. It would not be so bad, of course, if I didn’t work so much. That left me precious little time to myself, barely enough to sleep, and those little bits of free time were taken up utterly with writing down her words.
***
Court went well enough. It was a simple hearing; I could have done it in my sleep. Afterwards, I called Naomi. She told me she was in New York on business, and wanted to see me. Could we meet for lunch?
I didn’t have any particularly pressing business, and the voice in my head was telling me to agree, so I did. We arranged to meet in two hours at a little café we had frequented as students.
I got there early, so I pulled out my laptop and got started on drafting a memo. I was so absorbed in my work that I did not even notice Naomi had arrived until she sat down in front of me. She laughed at my preoccupation; I had been the same way in school.
“How have you been?” I asked. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen you.”
“I’ve been well,” she said. I could tell it was true. She looked vibrant and happy. Clearly do-gooding agreed with her. “What about you?”
I shrugged. “I’m okay.”
She frowned. “You look tired.”
I gave her a look of mock outrage, and we both laughed.
“I am tired,” I admitted. “It’s this job. It’s killing me.”
“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” she said. “We have an opening for an experienced litigator. How would you like to come and work for the good guys?”
***
The voice had been gently suggesting that I look for another job for some time now, but I had been putting it off. There was always something more important, some urgent project that could not wait. Besides, it had been years since I had job-hunted. I had not been quite sure where to start. Now, though, an opportunity had landed in my lap. I agreed to interview at Naomi’s organization. She seemed certain that I would get the job, but even if I did not, there would be other opportunities.
That night, I got home after midnight again. My apartment was dark and lonely, but her voice was in my head, and I felt less alone. I made myself some tea. Then I sat down and my desk and got out my laptop. It was a matter of minutes to set up a simple blog on a free website, under my own real name.
This time, when she started speaking to me, I typed the words. I had had enough of hiding my thoughts away in boxes. They were my thoughts, whether the voice in my head was a figment of my imagination or a real being who had chosen to speak with me. She had given these words to me, and now it was my responsibility to give them to the world, not by shouting on a street corner or asking for money on TV, but simply by writing them down where anyone could read them.
It was not long before she stopped speaking this time. Maybe now that I was finally sharing her—my—our thoughts with the world, she could afford to be patient. I glanced over what I had written. It was clear, straightforward, a strong argument that did not cross the line into a polemic. I hit publish, and went to bed.
***
I did not know what would happen the next day. Still, I felt a kind of fierce joy and a sense of hope for the future that I had not felt in years. Maybe no one would read it. Maybe everyone would. Maybe they would believe me. Maybe they wouldn’t.
I just wanted to see what happened next.