The Voice

So, how did these symptoms begin?

You mean from the beginning, as in the beginning beginning?

Answer however you like. There is no right or wrong here.

Maybe we can start there. With here, I mean. Sorry, where exactly is here again?

Here is where you are not. There is where you are.

Right. It started on Ingarö, up by the rock where I kept my pinecone collection. Not the other place, where my brother hid his. They’re easy to mix up, because we often stole from each other’s stashes. Once I got there and it was completely empty, I thought I could blame the squirrels, but it was him. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t notice? No, I’m getting off the subject now.

You don’t need to think about me. Just keep talking.

I just have to ask. Who were you again? Have we met before, or how did this happen, you being connected to me for a conversation? Have you somehow got access to my neck chip? I’ve read about things like that, people starting to dream other people’s dreams. Just a technical problem, something that could of course be fixed, but frightening all the same. Not that you have any control over your own dreams either, but somehow they’re more familiar.

Everything is as it should be.

So you weren’t going to answer that? Right, okay. You mean I’m just supposed to accept that you’ve forced your way into my head like this? I mean, I’m a fairly open-minded person, but I don’t know if there’s much point carrying on.

Yes, you do.

You’re still here.

What are you thinking?

Now I remember. It didn’t start there with the pinecones at all, but weeks later. We went to a film premiere together and he sat rustling a bag of sweets through the entire film, not just a little during the adverts, but all the way through, as if he was rattling the plastic to see how long he could keep making noise before someone told him off. That was when the so-called symptoms began, if “symptoms” is what you want to call them.

What would you like to call what has happened to you?

Wounds would be better. You’re probably wondering why. It’s because I think they’ll heal with time. It’s just that a considerable amount of time has already passed, so I’m getting tired of waiting for the healing.

That is why you need me.

Why do you say that?

Because that’s what you believe, isn’t it? That’s why you keep talking to me, even though you can switch me over to the other channel whenever you like. Just the way you usually do with all the men. One badly judged joke and they end up on the static channel. Convenient for you, being able to do that. Another way of solving problems.

Who were you again?

Shall we go back to the symptoms, the ones you call wounds?

Okay, it feels a bit like having fly larvae writhing through my bloodstream. As if they’re forcing their way out into the capillaries. Sometimes it hurts so much I wake up screaming in my sleep. Do you think they could be living inside me now? Could there be more of them? Can the eggs hatch inside a human body?

Don’t get off the subject.

Aren’t you supposed to do what I ask? Weren’t you programmed to serve humanity?

Ah, so it’s a test. It isn’t strange that you think I’m a robot, given how this has turned out, but I’m someone else, something else.

Am I dead?

What makes you think that?

I can’t see my hands.

If we go back to the original question, I think everything will become clear, and you’ll be able to see your hands.

Is this some kind of detective puzzle, where we have to work out who the murderer is?

Something like that.

The butler, obviously.

We don’t really have time for this. Do you see the light over there?

Yes, I do.

We’re going to try to avoid it, okay?

Then I’m not completely dead yet, that’s good. But I’ve been poisoned, haven’t I? It’s the larvae? I need to remember how it started so you can give me the right antidote. Have I understood how this works?

It certainly seems so.

There by the pinecone collection, I got so many tick bites. Twenty of them in a cluster across one calf. Almost as if it felt like having a leech there. Mum spent the whole evening digging at them with tweezers before they were all gone, but ever since then, ever since then the larvae.

Reasonable.

How old am I, then? Maybe this was last week?

From this state, you are every age and none of them. It’s a little difficult to explain. But at least you’ve given us something to go on now. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll be in touch.

What?

…

Hello?

…

The voice, can you hear me? The light is getting closer, I wasn’t supposed to look over there, was I? You said I should avoid staring at it, but there’s nothing else here.

I think we have a solution.

That really was at the last second.

All you need to do now is close your eyes. And when you open them again, don’t mention any of this. You have to promise. You just say you had a nice little sleep. That’s all.

Yes.

Promise.

I promise.