The Voices: Part 1

This is part of a rather serious entry I've been working on for a little while. Right now that part's not ready, but this is coming out so well I thought I would post a rough draft right now. This is Part 1 of 3 (plus a conclusion) that I'll post over the next few weeks.

I hear voices. Lots of crazies hear voices. But I name mine. Get to know them. Have in depth discussions with them about the way things are going and the way things may begin to go. When one of them goes away I very often miss them, and when they return we often find ourselves overjoyed to have "run into each other" again. You really want to know how fucked up I am? My voices don't just talk to me, they talk to each other. You don't really know madness until you're a second party to multiple conversations taking place inside your head all at once. And they talk about the dumbest things you could imagine. I absolutely loathe small talk. So imagine how mortifying it is to be engaged in small talk with yourself on a near constant basis. ("The weather's awfully nice today Jack." "Yes, I wish this fat fuck would get outside more don't you Thomas?")

Worse sometimes I think something and I can't tell if it was me thinking it or one of them saying it. I hear in my head, "I really miss lemon meringue pie." And I have to pause for a second because I know that I never liked lemon meringue pie and I can't tell if this is me having a random thought or one of the others just filling me in on some random bullshit. Now that I think about it the very fact that I often refer to them as "the others" while being full aware of the fact that they don't exist is probably a pretty good sign that I'm losing my mind.

The other day I saw something happen on the street and I thought, "I wish Lazzy had been here to see that." Before slowing down long enough to realize that there is no Lazzy. So sure he would have said something funny or stupid if he'd been real...but he's not. He's a fucking voice inside my head, he would have taken no more joy from the incident than I did.

When repeating something I often attribute it to them (anyone who reads this regularly knows the wit and wisdom of Hob, the melancholy musings of Rigby, and the occasional acid wit that spews forth from the noexistent mouth of Lazarus P. Jones). It's not like I don't know it was really me that said or thought these things, it's just I can't quite get my head around the fact that the voices in my head so very often sound so very different from me.

I've always wished, that even for a second, I could hear how other people think. Not what they're thinking about, not what they think of me, but how they think. Do they're thoughts sound like mine? Is any of this normal? Is there really something all that wrong with me? But alas I can't, and answers elude me for yet another day...

To Be Continued...