The Voice Inside

         There's a man inside my head—a bad man. I can't remember how long he's been there, but it seems like a long time. He tells me things that most people don't even think about, evil things, disgusting and perverted. I don't want to do those things, but he makes me. I believe that he's driving me crazy. And maybe he is, but it's like a storm turned upside down in my brain. Even when I was a kid he made me do stuff, stuff that sickened me.

         I remember throwing a cat into a huge bonfire.

         I had been fascinated with how cats always landed on their feet no matter how high up they were dropped or how close to the ground. I should know because I tried both ways. Then the man inside my head says, "I bet nobody has ever tried throwing one in a fire to see what happens."

         So I tried.

         A small tabby always rubbed my leg to get attention. This time I picked him up quick as snot, I even heard that little 'motor purr' that cats make. But then I hugged him and started crying. This is bad, I thought. I don't want to do this.

         "DO IT!" the voice screamed. "Or I'll make you pay."

          I knew he could too. Disobedience was paid with painful migraines. So I threw the cat as high and hard as possible. He landed dead center of the fire but what happened next surprised me.

         I remember smiling, or he was, and the smile wasn't a bit pleasant. I suppose the cat ran out of there faster than any cat has ever run. He was probably searching his pea brain for the memory of being thrown into a fire before and what to do about it. He was shaking his legs as if they were wet and smoke was curling off his belly, where all the fur had been burnt off. His legs, too, were smoking and hairless. But at least he survived.

         And the voice said, "Well I guess he landed on his feet then, huh?"

         I felt so bad—that poor cat. Sick with disgust and fear, I fell to my knees and threw up.

         "Well that was fun, wasn't it? What do you want to do now?"

         "Get out of my head you bastard. Get out NOW!"

         But he didn't.

         I attended half-hour sessions twice a week with a psychotherapist. He explained that my problem was not real. There were no voices. He was an idiot. The voices continued.

         When I was in high school I broke this guy's arm while wrestling in P.E. class. I had pinned him with his arm bent up behind his back. He tapped the mat in defeat and instead of releasing him the voice told me to break his arm. So I applied a little more pressure and everyone heard the bone snap. That got me kicked out of school. I did lots of things like that and people just assumed I was a real dick.

         So I was pretty much on my own. I lost my parents in a fire and then had to live with my Aunt Lucy. Her house burned down too but nobody died. People suspected me but it wasn't me it was the voice inside.

         When I was in college my roommate was so loud and obnoxious all the time. The voice told me I could get rid of him if I put a deadly Amazonian spider in the dorm room. I got the spider from my biology class and then after putting it under his bed covers, I left for the weekend. When I returned he was still in bed, mouth hanging open in death, eyes bulging and oozing with yellow pus. The spider had crawled up into his mouth where it was living quite peacefully. That got me thrown out of college and almost landed me in jail but my alibi was too good. I wasn't even there.

         "Nobody lives forever," he said. "But everybody tries."

         That seemed like an odd thing to say and the sound of his voice was even odder.

         "I could kill myself, you know. One final act of disobedience. Then you would die too."

         "Me? No, I can't die. I'll just go someplace else."

         "We'll see. So why'd you pick me, anyway?" I set the can of gas next to me.

         "We were born together you and me, friends forever."

         "You're not my friend, you're my worst nightmare."

         He chuckled, "You're welcome."

         I opened the can and poured gas over my head and body.

         "What are you doing? I want your body. I need it!"

         "No, I'm done with you." I pulled out my lighter—the same one I had used to set fire to my parents' house.

         "I'll hurt you! You know I can!"

         "Do your worst." I sparked the lighter, and the flame fluttered. The migraine came all at once, so intense that it felt like my eyeballs were rupturing. I dropped the lighter in my lap.

         "NO!"

         I was engulfed in searing flames and thought of the cat I had thrown in the bonfire. My gaze fixed intently on the distant vision, as though in the final instant of existence, I had glimpsed something more startling and far more terrifying than just my death. It was my Aunt Lucy clutching her head in both hands.

         "You will do as I say Lucy or I will cause you unimaginable pain."


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