It is important to acknowledge, and as the election draws nearer certainly, we all have a voice.
Better yet, some of us are endowed with more than one voice – some of us have a veritable array of voices…
The oral voice, the voice that comes from betwixt my lips or is channelled through the first three digits of my right hand and which indubitably showers people with regular onslaughts of pompous vocabulary, extraneous description, recklessly excessive levels of opinion, passion and volume, also some saliva, is the most congruous and indeed, the only truly coherent voice in direct connection with my brain.
The others, oh God, the others, these guys do more or less as they please. They are loud, they are vehement, they scarcely show regard for any kind of controlling force and with even less frequency do they ever completely stop talking.
They don’t talk to me as such, they talk, or more accurately, they yell, at me. It’s not abusive at all; I do actually think they’re trying to assist me in some way, perhaps help me navigate this convoluted debacle that is life and if they exhibited proper conversation etiquette, if they gave a damn about showing courtesy or in the least, common decency towards their fellow voices, well, I’d probably give serious consideration to heeding some of their advice.
They don’t though, do they? This multitude of voices in my head appear to not know the first bloody thing about the accepted way to hold a discussion and that riles me to the point of combustion, to say nothing of elevated stress levels.
With most every significant decision I make or action I take, I hear the subsequent cacophony of opinions who think they know better. Not one opinion at a time, as is regarded as the most effective way to put across a point, but all at once, as is regarded as the most puerile thus ineffectual way to convey thoughts.
Firstly we have the voice of reason, which unlike a typical, rational voice of reason, is actually a voice. On the plus side and I suppose true to form, it is the most intelligible, also vociferous, therefore easiest to make out; hence my generally logical disposition. It is this voice, hand in hand with my actual, verbal voice, that comprises my salient voice.
Then we have the others. These are an eclectic bunch. From the most garbled to the most haunting, when they’re all going at once, it’s as if I’m standing two metres from a passing freight train. Suffice to say it can be intense.
The voice of compassion is a bitch – that or just a man with an effeminate and nagging tone, I’m unsure. Gender notwithstanding I generally do my best to shut out this voice altogether.
The voice of empathy is similarly tiresome because it likes to try and deduce the feelings of practically everyone I encounter, which would be fine, if it didn’t yell them in my ear while I was focused on initiating conversation with this person.
The voice of reality, which should really be part of ‘reason’ but for some reason is a separate voice, is constantly deriding my voice of delusion, presumably to keep me real and possibly to prevent my travelling the remainder of the way into dreamland.
The voice of hope started life as its own voice but with time became increasingly akin to my voice of delusion, which only began its existence in recent years after I realised that much of the world’s hardship didn’t actually require a logical outcome, and so I often don’t bother distinguishing delusion from hope and just accept them as one blissful entity.
The voice of delusion, my beloved voice of delusion, perhaps ironically, is the only thing that keeps me sane. ‘Delusion’ provides the impetus to keep pushing. It keeps me hopeful that one day, things just might be better. It brings a lovely, mellifluous and reassuring tone, and faced with a devastating or similarly unfortunate situation, my voice of delusion likes to talk about and to offer up a range of plausible, however unlikely, positive outcomes that just might happen to take place sometime in the near or distant future.
This of course starts my voice of reason shouting, its voice reverberating around my skull, assuring me that the voice of delusion is full of shit and by paying it attention I’m only encouraging it so if I ever want to live permanently in the real world I need pull my head in; then just when I’ve managed to subdue ‘reason’, bloody ‘reality’ starts having a go at ‘delusion’, too.
In a recent showcase of the aforementioned calamity, I was making my way back from the local garage having just collected my mail, on foot and striding out the final stretch, perspiration prickling as it had been for the last seven kilometres, vision increasingly blurred as a result of heat’s inner suffocation, my voice of reason yelling at me as it had been since shortly after departing the garage that penance is for fools who don’t know any better and I should have taken the shorter route home, when I make out a humanoid figure in the distance.
I am conscious of my voice of hope utter in a wistful tone, “Wonder if it’s a woman..?”
My voice of reason shoots back sardonically, “Well there’s a 50/50 shot, dickhead.”
My voice of reality then adds, “Yeah, so you might as well go ahead and apply the 50/50/90 rule to that one.”
As the figure drew closer I could tell by the posture that it was in fact, a woman.
My voice of hope was at it again: “Wonder if she’s pretty..?
Reason: “If she is she’ll be married, dickhead.”
Reality: “Yes and by implication, fat.”
As the gap between us grew smaller still, despite my blurriness I could see that this slim, attractive and youthful woman was smiling at me; this set the cacophony in full swing.
Compassion: “Pretty girl, pretty smile, pretty…”
Empathy: “Yeah, wonder what she’s thinking..?”
Reality: “Probably thinking about her husband…”
Hope: “Yeah but what if she’s not though…”
Reason: “If she were single…”
Compassion: “…eyes, pretty pretty.”
Empathy: “She’s looking into our eyes…”
Hope: “Oh wow, she’s really…”
Reality: “Shame you can’t look into hers.”
Reason: “…she wouldn’t have a house…”
Empathy: “…her eyes are wonderful…”
Hope: “…beautiful.”
Reality: “You can’t see her eyes, dickhead.”
Compassion: “God, what a sweetheart.”
Reason: “…in this district.”
Empathy: “She looks so peaceful.”
Hope: “That smile is just for me…”
Reality: “Don’t be daft, dickhead…”
Hope: “…and nobody else.”
Reality: “…she probably smiles like that…”
Delusion: “She and I could start a life together…”
Empathy: “Smile back man…”
Reality: “…at everyone she doesn’t know.”
Compassion: “God, what a sweetheart.”
Reason: “Don’t waste your time smiling at her…”
Delusion: “…it would be perfect…”
Hope: “So let’s get to know her..?”
Empathy: “…she wants you to smile back…”
Reality: “Why are we scowling?”
Hope: “She’s into us, eh.”
Reason: “…her husband’s probably at home…”
Delusion: “…just imagine it…”
Reality: “Oh, face isn’t cooperating today…”
Empathy: “…but oh, she’s looking away…”
Delusion: “…house in the countryside…”
Reason: “…having just made sweet love to her…”
Compassion: “God, what a sweetheart.”
Delusion: “…she just has to be a cat person…”
Empathy: “…and she doesn’t look like a cat person…”
Hope: “She is so into us.”
Reality: “…so yeah, smiling seems to be out…”
Delusion: “…she’d make a great wife…”
Empathy: “…she just looks creeped out…”
Reason: “…and we know we can’t offer her…”
Empathy “…look away, look away…”
Reality: “…just give her a casual wave…”
Delusion: “…to our kids…”
Compassion: “God, what a sweetheart.”
Reason: “…even half of what he’s bringing…”
Empathy: “…what are we doing…”
Reality: “…as we pass – I said casual, dick…”
Hope: “Bet her husband’s a fat douche-bag…”
Delusion: “…we’d be so happy together…”
Reason: “…he’s probably a builder or something…”
Empathy: “…that was too obvious…”
Hope: “…probably treats her like dirt…”
Compassion: “God, what a sweetheart.”
Reality: “…head, wave, don’t salute.”
Delusion: “…yeah, she’s thinking the same thing…”
Hope: “…she deserves so much better.
Reason: “…so just give it up.”
Empathy: “…now she thinks you’re a douche.”
Compassion: “She’s even a sweetheart from the back.”
Reality: “Nice one, dickhead.”
Delusion: “…shit. Missed it.”
Tell you what, my voice of delusion must have some mightily robust self esteem because it’s always there when I need it, irrespective of how much it’s been downtrodden by logic and told it’s full of shit; showing me that maybe, just maybe there is a scenario that’s not as bleak as the world sometimes seems to be and no matter how shitty things become, it will always be there, my beloved voice of delusion, to whisper reassurance in my ear while casting its glorious cloak of effervescent illumination, so much like the sparkle of early morning dew on a freshly trimmed lawn, the world, momentarily at least, will appear that much more beautiful.
Article by Tim Walker
Edited by Carmen Voice
Photography by Dee Lou Shinn