The Voice*

***

I never considered myself lucky or special; it seemed to me that I was even a little more ordinary than others. But it was to me that the voice whispered, “Come on!”, and I understood my purpose and my place in life.

Of course, it didn’t all happen at once. What’s more, I didn’t understand where I was supposed to go. I thought I had gone mad and took a week off work to rest and get myself together, but the voice was not speaking because of my fatigue: it gave me orders and wanted me to act.

The voice was a sly one. It never made it clear whether it came from inside my head or from the room, the objects, my old television or the cabinet it stood on. It appeared only in complete silence, and I couldn’t ask my neighbor whether he heard those words. What a little trickster!

After I returned to work, it quieted down a bit. I had already begun to think that I really was just tired, that I was turning my own thoughts into phrases and words I wanted to carry out: “Come with me, come on, stop loafing around, let’s go.” It sounded like a call to work, to eternal labor and everything the Union had taught us. But then the voice appeared again. It gained three new words, and now it repeated them more often than the previous ones.

Luckily, now I understood that it lived inside my skull, because the phrase “What are you waiting for?” was repeated only in the presence of my colleagues and passersby when I was walking home. “What are you waiting for? Come on, come with me.” I began to notice something strange about all people. Either I hadn’t learned anatomy well at school, or they had all mutated while I hid away in my cozy apartment, but now I clearly saw horns on everyone. Small black horns on their foreheads, casting a shadow. No, I’m serious—I even rubbed my eyes, looked again at all the people around me, and really did notice this horrible addition to their heads. Suddenly the thought occurred to me: what if I had the same features? I bolted home to the mirror to make sure.

Fortunately, the “illness” hadn’t touched me; I remained the same as I had been for the past year. That fact calmed me a little, but once I recalled the heads of those people… They were horrifyingly repulsive, and the voice supported me. By the way, this “cheerful” addition to the voice again suggested madness, but I could still think normally, I was still myself, so I tried to get rid of the intrusive words in my head.

I spent time in noisy groups, stayed away from home for whole days, sometimes even managed to forget about the thoughts and words—now more precise—“Get rid of the horns, come on.” But after some time they always returned, as they always did.

The voice learned words. The horns grew. It would have been inappropriate to ask the girl who worked in the same office with me why she didn’t hide her twisted little horns under her bangs or trim the long, gray claws, and so I kept putting off the question. Something was constantly changing in her, as in other people: sometimes her skin would grow pale, sometimes a scale would appear on her arm. People suddenly stopped taking care of themselves, yet behaved as if nothing had happened.

“Get rid of the horns and claws.” My patience ran out. I stopped caring about what had happened to these people; now it simply angered me. Even my mother, who had always been a neat woman, pretended as though huge ram’s horns were normal for her.

Everything happened so fast, and I remember almost nothing. She was only asking me about my health, about how things were going at work, while I stared at her horrible twisted nails digging into the kitchen table.

“Do it!” the voice said much louder and more confidently than usual, as if it knew I was ready. And I couldn’t hold back. I grabbed the kitchen knife lying on the table beside me and slit her throat. I was terribly surprised when, instead of blood, colorful ribbons poured out onto me, like confetti. As if it wasn’t my mother sitting in front of me at all, but a toy stuffed with bright, colorful junk.

After that, the voice didn’t come anymore. It didn’t come for a whole week, or even longer, but then it realized I couldn’t be left without support and continued advising me to get rid of the people who had turned into amusing little beasts with piles of colored paper inside. The next victim was the girl from work I mentioned earlier. The final straw was when her hands turned into big paws with wet yellow scales. She needed to be saved, so I hacked her body to pieces right at work. Luckily, no one saw it because of the late hour, but I was careless. The voice didn’t tell me to remove the body, and I left her remains right there in the office.

Knowing that I had nothing left to lose, I threw a real celebration on the main street. Three or four horned ones were wounded and possibly killed right before everyone’s eyes the very next morning.

By court decision, I was sent to a psychiatric hospital, which was exactly what I expected. Foolish horned creatures didn’t understand that this world needed to be rid of the vile-looking beasts, and so boldly handed down their orders. In any case, there was nothing I could do.

The hospital I was sent to turned out to be nothing like the ones shown in horror movies. There were quite kind people there, despite the fact that I was a “deranged killer.” The wonderful Dr. Albertina Larus liked to talk with me while I was strapped into a wheelchair with restraints. I asked her about the horns, to which she replied that they were merely a product of my imagination. I pretended to understand her, and in our last conversations I even pretended that the hallucinations were gone. The voice inside me was killed by shock therapy, though it soon came back to life. Then she allowed me to come to her office on my own, without guards—and that was her biggest mistake. The voice again ordered me to get rid of the creature, and I obeyed.

The orderlies ran to her scream, and I had just finished shoving a metal ruler down her throat.

My term was extended by several more decades, and now I’m not even allowed into the corridor. But I know this is not the end. Both the voice and all my thoughts have been killed by devilishly strong drugs, yet I remain myself. Despite everything, I remain myself and wait for the next orders.