Voices

 Voices 

I am writing this because some of you have asked, kindly, where I have been.
     Sometimes – often! – when a ceiling fan is turning, I hear voices. This is not uncommon, I’m told. There’s a name for it whether or not I can remember what it is. The voices sound far away. I can hear the rise and fall of them, but I can’t understand what they are saying. “Maybe they are talking about tea,” I think – not the culturing of the plant or how tea leaves get from the field to market, but how we brew them when we get them home, how we make a pot of tea and pour it out into cups and sugar and cream it if we do, what we eat with it for “tea.”
     Other times I hear the voices when the fan is not turning, the sound of the smell of dust. Then, they will come closer; they tztztztztz closer like wasps. They don’t become more distinct, only louder. TZTZTZTZTZ. Still, they sound like wasps. Whatever they are saying they are saying in wasp-language. It doesn’t sound pleasant like friends talking about how they like their tea. It sounds more like a political discussion about to turn from civil to yelling. It sounds like one of the so-called “news” channels when everyone begins talking over everyone else as if he or she thinks the listener can only hear at her or his register.
     This is when I switch over to Law & Order or one of the Music Choice channels. But I can’t switch the wasps off. They tztztztztz at the dialog. They tztztztztz at Cannonball Adderley and Nancy Wilson. They tztztztztz me up the stairs to bed. They are still at it when I fall asleep. They argue me awake in the middle of the night. They don’t stop to sing hymns to the dawn.

01.04.21

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“Ceiling Fan.” Cell phone drawing by m ball.