He couldn’t really remember the last time he’d been alone. He was alone now. He was always alone, but he was never alone-alone. The voices never left. Some people, anyone that may have known about his condition probably pitied him, but he didn’t know life any other way. The voices got to him – they really got to him, but he was pretty sure he would miss them if they left. They were like siblings – they fought with him, but he’d been around them his whole life and, at the end of the day, he kind of loved them.
When people used to find out about “the voices”, they would leave. Even his parents left him. Of course, his parents couldn’t leave him the same way everyone else did, but the day he turned eighteen, they kicked him out of the house and, from then on, he was on his own. He had no family or friends. The best he could make was acquaintances because if they got any closer to him, they could sense something was up and then the secret would come out – the voices would be found out.
Some days he cursed the voices and the hand he’d been dealt in life. Other days he thanked god that he had the voices since he had no one else. They fought like brothers and made up like brothers. They were the only people he could count on. When he needed advice, they were always there. When he just needed to hear someone’s voice, they were there. When he needed someone to tell him that he mattered, they were there. When he needed someone to put him in his place and shit all over him, they were there. Sometimes, he got the wrong treatment at the wrong time, but at least he got some kind of treatment from someone. Thank god for that.
He often fantasized about what his life could have been like if he hadn’t had the voices. As much as he appreciated their company, it was hard to resist fantasizing about living a normal life. He mostly thought about that on his “bad” days, the days when he cursed the voices. Frankly, though, it was hard to think about much at all when the voices were all yelling at him full blast. But when it was over, that is when he cursed them and dreamt of days when they would go away or of an alternate reality in which they never existed.
Of course, since he was kicked out at the young age of eighteen-years-old, he had to get a job right then and there. He only had a high school diploma and his grades were nothing to brag about. It was pretty amazing he had even finished high school, but he had – without any support from his parents who had given up on him years before he graduated high school. He had a pretty easy job at a restaurant – washing dishes. He really had no say in his hours and was a bit too intimidated to ever ask for any days off, but the pay was enough for him to get by on. It was the kind of job that most people would complain about, but he just thought that things could be worse. That was how he lived most of his life. He didn’t have anything in his life that was unbearable, so he was content enough with everything. Even the voices could be worse. On his worst days, the voices weren’t too harsh in their criticisms of him – they never really went straight for the jugular, but, instead, choose to make general, broad statements about him. He could put up with it, so he did.
Like everyone else in his life, his co-workers weren’t particularly close with him. Why would they be? They just worked together, that didn’t mean they had anything in common. He kept on pleasant terms with everyone because that seemed best, but he kept his distance so nobody really saw what was going on in his head and to avoid bonding too strongly with anyone. When he’d let himself get too close in the past, it was the most pain he’d ever felt when they eventually found out about the voices and left him. He’d always regretted building those people up in his mind so much, it made it much worse when he saw the look of disgust and fear in their faces when they figured out about the voices or figured out enough to know something was wrong with him. But his co-workers he got along fine with. Other than doing his best to be polite and accommodating to them, he had seniority at the job. He’d seen at least 3 or 4 waves of kids come and go from that job. A few had moved up to higher positions, but most just used the job as a few lines on their résumé. However, he was content staying at this job. He knew how to do it and he knew where it was and he was fairly good at it. He’d been talked to a couple times about maybe having aspirations to move up to a higher position. He just shrugged them off and said he was happy where he was. Although he rarely noticed it, a lot of the people at his job gave him weird looks. Looks like they knew something was wrong with him. Maybe he’d gotten too close to them despite making an effort to keep his distance. It was bound to happen when working with people consistently. However, he didn’t really take much note of it and was fairly confident that they were none-the-wiser about his voices.
That was just it, they were his voices. He had no reason to share them with anyone. They were his. He could do with them what he liked. He chose not to share them and he was happy with the choice he’d made. He wasn’t ashamed of the voices, but people acted weird about the voices so he decided not to share them.
The voices consumed his life. That isn’t to say they were always there, but they nearly were. He had the occasional “normal” day, but most days they popped in to say something quite a bit throughout the day. And, as we’ve been over, there were days of nothing but voices screaming at him – but that was fairly rare, maybe once a month, twice tops. The voices were such a part of his life and his only company that he often thought about the rest of the world that he kept at a distance. He thought about what they thought of him, but he thought even more about what they would think about him once he was gone. He was a loner, there was no doubt about that.
He would spend hours, when the voices didn’t interrupt, thinking about how the world would receive his death. Death was inevitable and it seemed only logical that he embrace it as something that was bound to happen. He wasn’t suicidal or too fixated on death, he just knew it was coming and sometimes wondered about the world after he left it.
He thought about his co-workers, surely the first to notice when he died – when he didn’t come into work. He was always great about going to work, never a sick day and always on-time. So surely they would be the first to become aware that he was no longer there. And surely they would be the ones to start investigated. They would probably file a missing person report. He wondered how soon they would file that report. After the first day of missing work? They might just because he was always so reliable, but they might give him a couple of days. Three tops, he decided.
What would happen next? How curious would they be about him? They weren’t that curious about him while he was alive as far as he could tell, but there seemed like there was something to a dead person that intrigued people. Admittedly, there would be some interest in how he died – he’d be sorry to disappoint them with “natural causes” – but he thought there was more. When a person is alive, people think they have all the time in the world with them. They can find out more about the person next week, they can talk to them tomorrow, but after they’re dead, they’re gone. There is no postponing anything. There is a certain amount of information in existence and there won’t be any new information being created. The longer they wait, the more likely the information will disappear.
Maybe he was being ridiculous. Maybe his co-workers really wouldn’t care about him. They probably won’t miss him. Although, while they might not miss him, they would surely have to acknowledge that he was missing. He was at that job for over a decade now and, by the time he died, it would probably be at least another decade if not a few more decades.
If they were interested in finding out about him after he died, what would they learn? What could they learn? People tend to learn about people through the people that knew them, but nobody knew him. He hadn’t spoken to his parents in years and they didn’t even know if he was alive anymore. It was at that point that he took out a piece of paper and a pen and he started a list. He wrote things about himself on that list. He started off with the most obvious, “voices” and then began listing things he enjoyed: action movies, non-fiction books, jazz music, tennis games on television…
It seemed silly to him. What did he care if anyone found out anything about him after he died? He would be dead after all – and nobody cared to learn about him while he was alive. Still, it felt good. He couldn’t help, but feel better that he would be leaving some sort of mark behind after he died. He might not have made any friendships, but if anyone was interested, hopefully they’d be made aware of this piece of paper explaining himself to whoever was concerned even if it was overly simple. Hopefully they could put the pieces together and figure out what the list meant. He put the paper on his counter - and made a mental note to continue adding to it as long as he lived - before putting on his coat and heading out the door to work.