For all the people who think I'm a bit off in the head...
Did you hear it?
Did you hear the whispers?
They’re all around, growing louder, deafening, and then fading. The white walls flicker and flow around me as the voices titter. They’re planning something, but they won’t tell me. I ask them over and over – I want to laugh too – but they won’t answer. Maybe I wouldn’t get the joke; I’m not a wall, after all. But they tell the carpet too, so it can’t be amusing exclusively to them. Unfortunately, the floor won’t let me share in the fun either.
I’m trapped between two worlds, rejected by both. I can see what most people don’t; I’m not like them. I see the flowers conspire and the paintings in the hall swim within their frames, splashing color when they play. Other people don’t know that their chairs twiddle their legs like thumbs when nobody’s around. I do. I also know that the radio makes up stories and tells them as if they’re news. Radios were always marvelous pranksters.
Humans don’t see reality.
Most people only see what they desire, or what they feel comfortable around. They don’t want to see the great gaping maw of the elevator or acknowledge that it ate a nurse last week. They still see her walking about and working quietly because that’s what they want. It frightens them to hear the doorknobs talking, so they block it out and imagine it doesn’t exist.
I suppose it frightens me a little too, but I can talk and reason with what I hear. I know they hear me, and most of them are sensible objects. Very few are malicious, even the elevator. It’s just hungry sometimes, but aren’t we all? I’ve given up trying to play mediator between the two worlds. Neither will listen to each other, even if I’m the one saying the words. The pillows cannot comprehend the ideas of human heads, no matter how close they often are. In the same way, we cannot possibly think exactly like pillows; we have very different priorities.
I have also abandoned the idea of warning those around me when the so-called “inanimateâ€