Teen Ink

Sound and Secrets

2
(Sound and Secrets)
The patients that I work with are basically considered incurable, so what I actually just do is close to interviewing as opposed to actually trying to help or fix them. They talk; I take notes; we do it again the next day.
The final three “inmates” are illogically intriguing to me. Honestly, I could pretty much care less about the others, but those three whom I save for last, keep me coming here. They always say something new, something odd and incorrect, something incredible. I’ll probably end up joining them, and then they’ll sterilize my mind and burn my reputation. Then I’ll relax on the same sinking ship as the other three do, watching the world fall to hell and torment, and I’ll know that in the end, we were better off.
It’s kind of hilarious, there’s something I hate about the little, sterile, stark-white rooms they sleep in - this one for example has a thin crack running the whole length of the left wall. It’s so close to perfect, so close to blank, but that slight irregularity throws it all off. I think it sort of fits the whole idea of this place. It’s a sterile environment, but each person is like a little smudge on the mirror, a little chip in the paint, the tiniest warping in the framework of the door. What a beautiful parallel…
He’s a black man, but I’ve never seen someone who was paler. His cheeks are sunken. On the rare occasions that he reveals his eyes, they are seen to be watery, listless orbs. His skin is papery and dried out. His complexion is blotchy and uneven; around his eyes are dark circles and around his hands is mottled whiteness. Today, his knees are up against his chest; his hands are on his knees, and his eyes are closed while his body faces the grimy mirror.
“Sound…
“Secrets.”
So begins the interview.
“Oh, the sounds! Oh, the information!”
They’ll all talk to me, but only to me. I think that’s because I’m almost like them. Almost.
“I’ve spent my life dedicated to learning. People like music. People love music. People fall in love with the world to music. That’s one of the great secrets. Why though? Why do subtle differences in tone, pitch, frequency, and rhythm affect us so greatly? Music is the fuel of the mind! I hear it in everything. You breathing, the generator humming, the doors creaking… They’re all singing to me!
“Oh, can’t you hear it? People would kill for music, to stop it! To become it! To create it… nothing happens now that hasn’t been around since long ago. There’s nothing new under the sun, yet, we try.
“There’s another secret: our drive to succeed, to create.
“I have traded everything for certain stories, and I know the darkest tale of them all, but the greatest mystery cannot be told, it must be discovered.
“I know who we are. I know why we are. It’s killing me. Please listen! It’s killing me.
“I know I scare people. Our intolerance, the one thing I know I’ll never understand. Einstein said, ‘Two things are infinite: The universe, and human stupidity. Though, I’m not certain about the universe.’
“How right he was. I don’t belong here. I hear the songs of creation. I know a glimmer of a fraction of the mysteries of God. I have too much power, too much knowledge. So they attempt to block it out with chemicals and pills and stunted logic. They are the fools. Their music stops and starts, and drives me to real madness. How can they live in such deafness and chaos? I’d be pushed over the brink. I am over the brink.”
He is a heavy-weight soap-boxer who holds the champion’s belt, but he is right.
Occasionally I catch it. The melody of birds is no warble; it’s a message, but only for a fraction of a second. Then I lose it in the white noise we purposefully drown ourselves in to escape this man’s fate. No one really wants to know the true secrets. I hate it more and more every second. Is there no flight other than to join these madmen?
The hallways have always reminded me of a throat…
The throat of some all-consuming monster which will not be denied…
The maw of a creature that will let leave no man who enters his realm.