Ah, the voice within!
As if there was only one. But these other treacherous infidels grow mutinous with each thought.

I know there...
beneath them all, is a primary voice. Some higher life force, if you will. Some resonating moral fiber. That voice is soothing, like drinks with umbrellas, pool side at the Beverly Hills Hotel. That voice is a lullaby set to music boxes.

That voice is not one to scream above the others; to interject with objections. It is patient and kind; it waits its turn. So the others have their field day and my conscience is worn thin. My forehead is stretched taut and played like a snare drum, my ears wincing with reverberations.

He grows old, that voice, and grays with age. His beard wraps playfully, reaching like a vine. And, maybe he emerges, after forty or fifty years, like a groundhog does its predicting. And he may go back down, shuddering in a hardened contempt at the flashing news cameras...denying me the luxury of Spring.

We pan down into his abode, subterranean and serene. An old phonograph is caught in a loop at the end of a vinyl, crackling a somewhat pleasing and nostalgic noise. But beneath the near silence of it all is a special frequency of infrasound known to produce shivers down the spine, nervous feelings of revulsion or fear, and acute anxiety.

The old man sits in a high back Victorian chair facing a fire, his back turned slightly toward us, showing his sinister profile. His hand clutches the arm and strokes it in a perverse manner that makes you question the nature of this once gentle being. And he turns, a deep laughter bubbling from his throat, and summons you into the depths of psychosis.

'But don't worry, my little one' his whisper seems to come from all around, it is the refining fire of hell which will purify you for heaven. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

We manage to climb above and squeeze from the dirt hole when a particularly benevolent reporter lends us a hand and pulls us to our feet. Of course they all burst into their cacophony of questions and camera clicking, but we push them aside, what seems like an outright mob of them, until we part the last bunch as if they were two palm fronds at the edge of a jungle, opening up to a beautiful waterfall oasis.

Are we alone here? Probably not. There is always the chance of a hidden camera. But, we take a dip in the nude and try to forget the world, me and my inner voice. We let the waterfall beat down on our shoulders and we stare back at the wilderness from whence we came like a boxer sitting back in his corner, a little beaten, but prepping for the next round. His boxer screaming something like, "stick and move, kid! He's murdering you out there...stick and move!"

Learn more about this author, Thomas O'Donnell.
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