Voice
“Hello.”
Wh—?
“Hello.”
It’s…it’s you.
Clear as day. It’s you.
Your voice. Your friendly voice. Where was that from?
Am I hearing that? Are you really there?
So completely familiar. Familiar voice. Familiar tailoring to the sounds. The tilt and tone, the lift and fall, the pitch and percussion of it. So clear, so clear.
I have a blueprint. Right here, a blueprint of you. No one can take that away from me. I love it, I love it.
“Hello.”
I can hear you saying it now.
Illuminates my gray brain.
Makes my heart accelerate now. I can feel it pulse now. Through the sheets. Through the mattress. It slows.
“Hello, baby.”
Pulse up quick again now, pound through the mattress. It’s the tailoring to the sounds, my blueprint of you. I want to be close to you. I want to merge with you.
Hello, hello.
It slows.
Where are you?
Have you come to see me?
I say, “Mia?”
“Morning, lovey.”
Oh.
Sheila.
Gentle Sheila.
That’s a proper sound. Physical sound.
I can hear it with my ears. Oh, that feels different, hearing with my ears. Bass vibrations.
“I’ve got some fresh water for you here.”
Cruel confusing morphine. It’s confusing. Strange.
Sound. Gentle sound. Low sound. Stirring my gray brain. Strange brain.
“Let’s wet those lips, OK?”
Cool mess on my lips, my chin. Low relief. It’s dripping; it’s dribbling.
Sheila still speaks to me. Lovely singsongy voice. Nice voice. But slow, gentle.
“I’ve been thinking about your A to Z,” she says. “Where have you got up to now? V, is it? Or W?”
Voice, voice. Sheila’s voice.
When did I last use my voice?
I want to say thank you. I’ll try to say—
“Don’t try to talk, lovey.”
Too dry now. Too parched.
What were my last words? I can’t remember.
I hope I’ve said enough.
Enough for them to be going on with.
• • •
Light flick.
Switch on.
All I can feel about me now is a heartbeat in a bed. I can hear it through the mattress. Faster, now faster.
It’s sensed what I’ve seen through the window.
My heart beats out what I have seen.
Should I push the button?
Sheila? Is Sheila there?
No, no.
Faster now, my heart beats in the sheets.
My heart beats, and I breathe.
I breathe and I see.
That’s all I am now.
I’m seeing now through the window and beyond. Beyond to the magnolia tree.
In the breeze between the hard-bitten branches of the little tree outside, there flutters and bobs a heart.
A love heart.
A crochet love heart.
It’s there. Look, it’s really there, in the tree.
I can see it.