Stramash

 Stramash* 

photo by David Hablützel

The din is only in one ear. Popping, pushing, fuming, seething in a foreign tongue, as of bees arguing a case to the queen, all shouting, yelling, shrieking at once.

     “Not really voices, then,” I tell Dr. Feight. “I’m not hearing voices.” Meaning like a crazy person.

     “Hmmm,” he says.

     “Yet,” I add - to myself.

Still, I’m optimistic. I’ve heard voices - the clamor has become voices - only once before. And they were speaking in tongues. Or one was speaking in tongues, and another was interpreting, just as the Apostle prescribes. But: what the interpreter said made little more sense than the speaker’s babble. Fractured sentences: “Did residential you know? Any visit required. Visible guidelines from to be reviewed. Go now.” Like that. Monotonic.

     “Male or female?” the doctor I saw then, cigarette-smelling, anxious yellow smile, asked. “I don’t know,” I told him. “A child, I think. ‘Take up and read.’”

     “What?” he asked.

That was three years ago. About this time of year.

     Since then, the bees have come to argue from time to time, shouting over one another, besieging the poor queen; but no words that I could discern. So, no voices. And only in one ear, the left. If I can keep you on my right, I can hear what you are saying. Or, if I can keep you in front of me, I can see it.

     You’d never know anything was wrong. And it’s not wrong really. It's not voices.

12.04.19

_______________

 * “Scottish term describing a moment of disorder involving several individuals. usually occurring at taxi ranks, q's at the brew office or in the six yard box moments before every goal scored by Glasgow Rangers.” - https://www.urbandictionary.com/