The Voice

“I want to go home,” the voice echoed. Jimmy’d heard it too many times before. It appeared in the dark, like mermaids near dangerous shoals, like bats in caves—it came and whispered. Sometimes it screamed, but the whispers were worse.
“We ARE going home,” Jimmy tried to pacify the voice, but the voice was not impressed. It shook its head and hissed, low, cold, warning Jimmy not to speak such foolish words again.
“Home… hooooome…!” it called.
“Elaborate, please,” Jimmy begged, asking, grasping for anything that would quiet the voice. “A fire place? Loved ones? A dog? Does it have to do with a certain place?”
“No…….. hisssssssssssssss…” the haunting came. “You know better.”
“I’m trying. I’m TRYING!”
“Not hard ENOUGH!” the voice grabbed Jimmy by the collar and slammed his occipital lobe against the wall. Jimmy’s cranium waggled back and forth like a bobble head on the dashboard of a car off-roading. His neck was so much rubber—used to the point that it no longer regained its original shape after being stretched.
“If it’s not a place, then it has to do with people,” Jimmy reasoned, trying to work his right hand around the voice’s wrist. The voiced gripped more tightly.
“HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS….”
Jimmy tried to laugh. Laughing in the face of danger. It worked in the movies. Right? It confused and disoriented your enemy. A few raspy, wheezing coughs came out as he felt his trachea collapsing. The voice saw what Jimmy was trying to do and responded with a real laugh, dark, deep and full. Jimmy’s ears compressed and popped as the voice rocked the air with genuine amusement. He was a dead man; the voice was winning.
“Take. Us. HOME!” the voice maintained a forced smile until the last word, which is spat out in a roar. Jimmy started to cry as it bit into his forehead. Blood, he could taste it, feel it trickling down his jaw bone as the life-giving fluid seeped out of his eardrums and from the crown of his head. Calling for help would bring down men with suits and eventually a padded room that smelled like vomit. Jimmy could see no one’s face but the voice’s, but he knew they were there, watching, wondering, waiting for him to lose it completely. Not that it really mattered anymore. The voice, the voice, the voice…
“HOME!!!!” the scream came, then the repeated whisper: “home, home, home, home…” He could feel his spine crumpling, snapping. There was nothing left. Responses were now completely useless. Blood, pain—nothing. Goodbye.
But wait.



Wait.



WAIT!

Light… soft and warm, growing to burning, pressed up against his ear. It burned, searing, sharp and alive. Suddenly, he could see again. The bleeding had stopped as well. The light stared at him, licking like fire. Consuming and giving at the same time. And Jimmy could see. He could taste the sweetness of roses and lilies. He could feel her touch, distant though it was, it felt as fresh as if it was yesterday. He could see the dog running around the back yard, eating cicadas; he could hear the crush and taste the sharp barbs on his tongue. He could he hear the cicada’s brothers in the tree above him, sounding their battle cry against he dog on the ground and the blue jays in the tree. He could see them ready their lances and charge.
The green of fields in Carolina, the white blankets of snow in Idaho, the violent blue of the seas in Florida, the purple of a coat hung in the hallway with care, a red candle burning in the center of a dim room, warming someone’s pale hands. The brown of a tree, planted on a hill in a desert in the midst of an ancient city, a man hanging in it, blood and pain painted on his face—blood and pain Jimmy knew. They were his own… but yet not. The light told the story. It reminded him. It filled him, and Jimmy remembered the answer to the voice’s question at last.
“CHRIST!” he screamed. The voice didn’t look nearly as large as it had a few moments ago. The strength in Jimmy’s words frightened himself almost more than it did the voice.
“Christ is home, you damned spawn of hell! Get back and know what home is!” the voice let go and stumbled back in utter shock. The light grinned, grinned like a father who has just watched his son ride a bicycle with no training wheels for the first time.
“No matter where I am, no matter who I’m with, Christ is home. Always has been, always will be. Argue that, refute THAT if you will!”
“No…. NOOOO!!!” the voice shrieked. “You’re listening to the light! Stop, STOP!!”
“Why? Why should I?”
“Can’t…. fight… it… GrrrrrrraaaAAAAA!!!!” The voice flew up against the wall and shattered, broken glass everywhere. Falling, crashing.
The light smiled and held Jimmy as he gasped for breath.
“Well done, my good and faithful servant.”