Voices

Jack stared at the sidewalk, counting worn cracks as he stepped over them, desperate for a distraction. Something, anything to make them go away.

Of course, he knew it wouldn’t work; nothing did. He’d tried everything; books, shows, people, places, sports. The boy had tested it all. Nothing quieted them.

The one thing that Jack managed to find contentment in, achieve some sort of escape, was music. Mark Hoppus sang him to sleep and Patrick Stump pressured him to keep going. Just for one more day.

That’s why Jack’s iPod was sewn to his hip, never leaving his side. You’d be left shouting at the boy for a while before he’d even notice your existence, pull out his ear buds of the week and pause that essential sound. And you’d most likely only steal a few seconds of acknowledgement before Jack sunk back into his artificial world.

In a way, he wasn’t that different from anyone else. Who doesn’t want to evade life?

On the other hand, he was far from normal. Your average person doesn’t slump down the street with their shoulders hunched, hood cinched and hands hidden, shoe soles barely leaving the scuffed pavement. Ordinary people don’t have unheard voices yelling in their ears.

But Jack did. His iPod fell off a table the day before, screen shattering against unforgiving concrete. He heard them whispering, spitting at him.

Worthless. You’re so useless, who would want you? Worthless.

Every second of every day, never-ending criticism, limitless ridicule. The thing was, Jack never did anything wrong. He was a good son, straight A student, polite boy. Didn’t deserve any of it, but the most cliché sayings always turn out to be true: life isn’t fair.

So Jack walked home alone, nails cutting into the bones of his fingers, sharp sting deterring the blurring of his eyes. They yelled and taunted in his head, daring the boy to walk in front of that oncoming semi. He wanted to, so badly. Surely death would be more peaceful.

But Jack was a strong believer in someday. He limped through life believing that it would eventually go his way. The boy gasped out each breath with those thoughts in mind; they were one of his only incentives to survive. Sooner or later, life had to look up. Someday.

Pathetic. Why do you bother? You will never get better. Pathetic.

“Good afternoon, boy,” a wrinkled grey haired lady called. She worked in her garden every day, floral apron and rusted shears, garden scene complete with her ugly yellow plastic gloves. Your stereotypical grandma that everyone knows. The woman always said hi to Jack, not that she knew his name.

He never answered.

The boy would just lift his head, eyes alighting on her crooked smile and shriveled lips as he threw her a fake grin. She forever failed to catch the pain glinting in his eyes.

His head dropped once more, shadow black hair falling into his eyes. Jack didn’t bother to move it. He didn’t care anymore.

Ugly. Who would love you? Nobody, you are disgusting. Ugly.

The words hardly even hurt anymore. He’d heard them all before. Jack knew it was all true, anyways.
He didn’t have any friends, and his family never wanted to be around him. Jack isolated himself; didn’t know how to interact with others. He rarely spoke to humans, and only conversed with his personal devils.

“But I was carried away…" another voice joined in the chorus in his ears as Jack mindlessly turned a corner, concrete edges becoming lined with dew drop green grass.

It was a different noise, sweeter than the dirty echoes always ringing through his ears. This was… beautiful. Untainted blissful singing, sugar coated perfect syllables.

“Give me therapy, I’m a walking travesty. But I’m smiling at everything. Therapy, you were never a friend to me, you can keep all your misery.”

Jack went to therapy. He entered the concrete block every Tuesday, that building that resembled a maximum security prison more than a mental rehab compound. The boy was due there in just over twenty four hours to have a stare down with the ragged edges of that hole in his favorite pair of jeans while his therapist rambled on about how just opening up would help.

He knew it wouldn’t. Nothing helped. They never stopped.

Useless. What do you ever do right? Nothing. Useless.

Jack instinctively shook his head, some desperate part of him still wishing that the voices would just fall out one day. He held out hope that it was possible, though the odds were bleak.

Doctors had given up on him long ago. The drugs didn’t work and the cause was nonexistent, so they wrote the boy off as another unexplainable oddity. The white coats didn’t care enough to keep trying. No one did.

“My lungs gave out as I faced the crowd, I think that keeping this up could be dangerous. I’m flesh and bone, I’m a rolling stone, and the experts say I’m delirious.”

Jack ripped his eyes away from the beaten concrete at his feet, defeated look falling upon a caramel haired beauty with his back to an oak tree. Maple guitar clasped in his lap, one dark denim sheathed leg drawn up and uncovered arms strumming effortlessly, the boy was a sight that had Jack faltering in his steps.

His cherry red mouth was curled up at the edges like rose petal rims and his eyes were loosely shut as the words flowed out of him. When Jack listened closer, he heard the boy’s rushed breaths and straining voice as the chorus progressed to high notes. It was the music’s flaws that made it perfect.

Stupid. He would never even look at you. Stupid.

Jack found his mud slathered Converse crossing onto the grass, taking mindless steps towards the singing boy. The voices hissing in his mind seemed dulled, less vicious. Quieter.

He knew it was a trick, some vicious play that would only make him want to blast a bullet hole through his skull more when the sounds in his head returned to full force. But for the moment, it was nice. He felt nicer than he had since they began, all those years ago.

Jack halted a few feet away from the brunette, staring at his skilled fingers strumming the instrument he held with such blatant love. His entire being was projected into the song, and Jack could tell. He could hear it.

“Arrogant boy, love yourself so no one has to, they’re better off without you, they’re better off without you. Arrogant boy, cause a scene like you’re supposed to, they’ll fall asleep without you, you’re lucky if your memory remains.”

Jack would a sworn in one of those heartbeats that kept his blood pumping that his emotions had never been described better than in those few words. It was one of the reasons he’d always loved music – the lyrics put into words ideas he’d never been able to fathom expressing himself.

The only imperfections were that he was far from arrogant, and loved himself about as much as doctors adore cancer. Hate would be more suiting.

But there was that bite in the boy’s words, a vengeful fuck you to whoever the song was directed at. And Jack had an entire hit list of people he’d love to hear it. They deserved to take in those lyrics.

A wind picked up, tearing Jack’s hood off his head and fluttering the messy strands of the tree-shade-soaked boy’s honey hair. Autumn leaves that matched the tones of his crown flitted around his legs.

“Give me therapy, I’m a walking travesty, but I’m smiling at everything. Therapy, you were never a friend to me, you can take back your misery.”

Jack was too caught up in bluntly staring at the angel under a tree and inhaling the music he created to acknowledge how deafeningly silent it was. Not in the park – birds were chirping, kids were shrieking and that boy, that boy was playing his guitar, but his demons were hushed.

He shuffled a step closer, the brunette too lost in his instrument to notice his one man audience. His voice raised, raw passion ringing as his foot tapped the beat into the slippery grass.

“Therapy, I’m a walking travesty, but I’m smiling at everything. Therapy, you were never a friend to me, and you can choke on your misery.”

The boy smiled, hands falling from his instrument and eyes snapping open as the final notes rang through the air. Jack stumbled backwards, choking on nothing as he was flashed with a blinding grin.

Jack didn’t hear the first words that boy ever said to him; would never know that he immediately offered a casual ‘hey’ and curious question about his music. He was too caught up in the boy’s eyes, entranced by those burnt caramel brushstroke irises that he swore were an adequate dictionary definition of beautiful.

Jack was distressed by people and he scared stiff of eye contact, so the last situation anyone who’d ever known the depressed boy would perceive him in was looking into a perfect stranger’s eyes in the middle of a park on an average, boring fall day. But it happened, and Jack thanked God that it did.

He would spend the rest of his life staring into those eyes.