Voices

• Madison Sayer, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2019

“I can’t do this. She’s in there.”

“Marge, the activity ended a week ago. This… is just a shell. She’s gone”

Voices, just sound. Once a single part of my world, now the whole of my world. I’m not sure how long I’ve been like this; in darkness, immobile, unresponsive. Maybe what put me here would have done me one better to have killed me. I wouldn’t have to listen to the voices then. All they do is argue.

Imagine sitting in a bathroom cubicle and hearing people, who don’t know you’re there, talking about you. Now imagine that the person is your best friend and they’re talking about how you let them down. That’s what it’s like… on a constant.

All this time I’ve lain here, motionless, with nothing but the darkness and the cold, hearing them eat at each other. Generally, they argue about my fight. To be honest, I haven’t been sure of what I’ve been fighting from the moment I heard it first. It’s frightened me.

I’ve heard sobbing and people saying I have to win, but win what? And why?

“You think I don’t want her here? That I wouldn’t give anything to hear her voice again?” That’s dad, I think, at war again with mum.

“How can you even suggest otherwise when you want to stop the one thing keeping her alive”

Alive is a funny word, it can mean swarming with, animated, responsive, but in this case, it simply means living. The voices argue over this meaning tirelessly. I’ve learned to relate it to my fight but it doesn’t make it any less ominous.

Suddenly there’s another voice, one of authority, though hardly unfamiliar as its owner has monitored me as long as I can remember. “It’s all here. I’ll leave the final decision to you. Remember, if you choose to do this she won’t feel it and it’s no reflection of your parenting. You’ve held on this long and from a doctor’s perspective that’s really all you can do”.

The faint padding of their retreating footsteps fades out of my hearing range, giving way to the rhythmic beep of my monitors. The soft notes of sobbing that follow the moments' silence, echo around my head, accompanied only by the hesitant scratching of pen on paper and the occasional sniffle.

I lay listening to the bitter remorse, a twinge a guilt welling in the pit of my stomach and growing to encompass my body. My skin crawls with self-consciousness. I’ve let them down. I’m not winning. I can’t win.

And then, almost as though on cue, I hear a sharp intake of breath and the faint click of a plug coming loose of its socket. A gentle tingling, like that of a slight breeze brushing over my skin, fills my body and I welcome the sensation. It’s cool numbness encases me as I slip into the delicate cradle of nothingness. I don’t have to fight anymore. I don’t have to win.