The Whispering (Part 1)

Issue #36 Keith’s SciFi Musings Sunday, November 12, 2023

What Jonas heard that particular morning sounded like bits and pieces of words that hadn’t been born yet; a flurry of letters in search of mates, trying to complete a puzzle without directions.

shh fa walum nay

He lay on his back in bed, arms folded behind him beneath the wild spread of his salt and pepper locs as he stared at the chipped paint of the ceiling. His dark brown eyes squinted painfully but in deep concentration. This wasn’t the first time he had heard the whispers. But it was the first time he was beginning to understand what the whispers wanted.

shhhhh faaa wayyyy

He could hear them weaving in and out of one another like dry streams, hissing and rattling, trying to make sense out of nonsense. He used to think that the whispers were angry, perhaps even furious. But that morning as he stared at the ceiling, he listened more intently than he ever had. Probably because, for the first time, he wasn’t scared.

The whispers didn’t want to hurt him, or at least he didn’t think that’s what they wanted. Because why would they wait all these months?

Jonas also didn’t think they were ghosts, because he had dealt with ghosts before and ghosts didn’t have any problem expressing themselves. Plus ghosts were just people’s unsettled spirit matter. To Jonas, ghosts were proof that there wasn’t a heaven or a hell, just another set of choices.

But the whispers were something else entirely.