“Voices are weird, aren’t they?”

 

SHE’s standing in your old science classroom, rays of sunlight filtering into the room just the way they did when you started to daydream in class. The linoleum tiles are clean as ever, and there is a certain silence in the room. It isn’t quite oppressive, but you can feel it in the room, thick, yet broken with the faintest of sound waves.

 

“Every voice is unique”

 

You were trying to mimic the sound of your schoolyard bully’s voice, the trademark sneer, the smallest hint of malice, perhaps a bit of superiority, and the childish naivety of youth. Yet, it came out all wrong, just an octave too high, a lack of confidence, and the slight accent of revenge. SHE looks worn, beaten down, and for a moment, you feel a twinge of guilt. SHE tells you of the nuances of speaking, how to make your words resonate in the hearts of others, even the defiant set of your shoulders. You learn to treasure HER, and to you, your voice is precious.

 

“Sometimes, you don’t mean the words that come out of your mouth”

 

They hang in the air, a malevolent black, and you just want to snatch them right back, stuff them in the bottom of your pocket with an old gum wrapper and discarded pencil. SHE looks at you from across the room, affronted and ashamed to have taught you to speak in such a way. As SHE turns away, apologies spill from your lips in an uncontrollable flood. A man in a black suit, strangely reminiscent of a penguin, mirrors the look on HER face, but the years gone by have blurred his memory. He has long since forgiven you, but to this day, you can’t forget the look on HER face. 

 

“You never realize how precious something is until you lose it”

 

It’s almost laughable, funny in the way you might chuckle at a cartoon character slipping on a banana peel, or funny in a miserable way, broken giggles torn from an emancipated throat in some twisted semblance of humor. Your teachers keep telling you to speak up. Although your consciousness self(SHE/HER) tells you a soft voice carrying meaningful words is much more powerful. One day, you wake up and your throat feels shriveled under your skin, when you speak, the words come out strangled and choked. SHE said it was the flu, and that drinking lots of warm water would help, but a feeling of entrapment slowly sinks its claws into your throat. Words became suffocated before they spilled from your lips, and you could leave no mark upon the world without HER, your voice. People told me there would always be friends listening to what I had to say. That was a lie.

 

“Death is nothing to be afraid of, really.”

 

“Really” is just another lie, simply to reassure yourself that your fear of the inevitable is irrational, that your pretense of life is reality.

HER collapse is sudden. Heart attack, they said, natural causes, their words mingling with the echoes of HER scream as HER dying breaths left the dilapidated lungs. Only you know, SHE was smothered, brutally asphyxiated. What is the point of speaking when the voices of others drown you out? You don’t speak anymore, it feels like a stab in the gut when you do. Years ago, you thought it was only yourself, learning to speak, to communicate, to share your ideas. Yet, as you learned to speak, and your words were less of a kick in the stomach, but more of a pulling to the heart, you heard the quiet whispers of others. Their voices were dulled with use, yet, you could still hear them tickling at your ears. What happens, when voices have been drowned, when there is no use arguing a point when others refuse to believe? You realize, life is a vicious cycle of learning, of finding a message you want others to believe, and realizing that no one wants to listen. You were pushed aside simply for your gender, and SHE was left unheard simply because SHE spoke in a higher register, and advocated for the minorities.

When you speak, when words spill from your lips, you know with a cold certainty that no one is listening to the echoes of HER(you, your voice).