The Nocturnal Voice Read online

asked,

  “Like what? What things happened to you?”

  Daryl had been speaking passionately about the topic and seemed almost animated and carefree. He was about to anxiously reveal his experiences in detail, but abruptly stopped as he made brief eye contact with the nurse across the room. She’d been glancing over at them more frequently as the hour passed.

  The peaceful warmth faded from his gaze and he said,

  “I need to tell you one thing before I say anything more.”

  He leaned forward, motioning Ali to move closer, than whispered.

  “I really can’t talk about this here.”

  Ali squinted with a confused shake of her head.

  “Why? That’s not right, you should be able to talk about anything you want.”

  “Well, I guess I can talk about it but I really don’t think it would help me get me out of here any faster. This whole synchronicity thing is more or less the reason I’m here, OK?”

  Ali dropped her head appearing slightly uncomfortable.

  “Oh. You mean that…well I think I understand but I‘m not really sure.”

  She stopped herself for a moment wondering if it was appropriate to ask him any personal questions about it.

  “Wait, are you saying synchronicity brought you here or are you here because of what it’s doing to your head?”

  Daryl sat back in his chair and thought for a moment before replying to her question.

  He glanced back at her with a devilish grin and a small chuckle.

  “Both actually. That’s really kind of funny when I think about it, but I guess it’s both.

  Huh, that’s interesting.”

  Ali still appeared lost about the explanation still feeling odd about pressing him to elaborate.

  “It’s ok, you don’t need to explain it all if it hurts you or makes problems.”

  Daryl could see that she seemed noticeably interested in the explanation. Daryl thought for a moment still feeling awkward about discussing it. He leaned closer to Ali and whispered.

  “It’s OK. I’ll tell you everything. I really want to but I just don’t want the concierge for the hotel over there to overhear my discussion.

  Look, imagine if you were telling everyone here how happy and great you felt, but they overheard you tell me that you were going to off yourself the day you walked out the door. How soon do you think you’d be going home?

  Ali did nothing except stare at him with wide eyes.

  Daryl continued,

  “Rhetorical question I know, but what I’m saying is, it’s kind of the same with my story OK?”

  She nodded.

  “Ok, I get it now.”

  Daryl looked back briefly at the nurse for a moment, then had an idea.

  “How about if after dinner tonight, you meet me here again. It’s so full of patients and visitors in the evening there should be enough noise to obscure what we talk about?”

  Ali nodded.

  “Alright, but only if your comfortable telling me. It actually works out better talking tonight anyway cause I need I need to go a therapy session soon and have this horrific leg injury examined.”

  She rolled her eyes but then appeared slightly sad.

  “I also don’t want to sit all alone tonight. That’s not a good thing for me right now if you know what I mean.”

  Daryl nodded and smiled at her warmly.

  “I know, believe me I get it. Really though, you don’t have to worry because it will be alright. It will, you’ll see.”

  She smiled and waved as she left the day room and wandered out into the hallway.

  As she returned to her room to use the restroom, she felt perplexed trying to understand the absolute assurance in Daryl’s voice as he spoke the words “it will be alright”.

  She wished she could find a small part of that conviction within her own thoughts and began to feel deeply sad.

  She also began to think about how he used the scenario of pretending to be happy to get out of this place and covering the fact that in reality she felt hopeless. Notably, that example described her perfectly.

  Although she acted the part of the recovered depressed patient, the thoughts of being alone and grieving for all the people who were lost in her life were still slicing her apart like a jagged blade.

  The plan that she had from the moment she arrived was simple.

  She would act the part of a depressed person and slowly pretend throughout the week to get better. In her heart though, she still maintained the dark and horrible plan to end her life the moment she had the opportunity to return home and do so.

  This time however she would do it right.

  Her loneliness in the world was so profound, she had no way to see beyond the endless pain it caused and was unable to see how there would be any end to it.

  It consumed her day and night.