“Hey! I’m not a loner!” He shouts randomly. He glances around him and sees the disturbed look on people’s faces. He walks across the road and pretends that nothing had happened.
He eventually arrives at work. He couldn’t concentrate. He had too much on his mind. He starts to worry about himself and goes to see a psychiatrist. He is in there talking to the man for quite a long time,
“So, Stephen. What is wrong with you this time?” The psychiatrist asks sarcastically.
“I have a voice in my head”
“Ah, come one everybody does. Some people call it their conscious, others their inner self, or God or maybe even their soul. It’s perfectly normal.”
“No, its not. It’s a woman’s voice. A woman’s voice is following me around!”
“So, you have a woman’s voice in your head speaking to you?”
“Not to me, about me, accurately and with a better vocabulary.”
At this point, the psychiatrist talks to him a bit more to calm him down. Dismisses him and tells him to come back next week. Stephen makes his way back to work, walking along the busy streets of New York.
Helen writes away in here typewriter, “He found himself exasperated.”
“SHUT UP!” Shouts Stephen in the middle of the street. Helen carries on typing,
“Cursing the heavens in futility”
“No I’m not! I’m cursing YOU, you stupid voice so shut up and leave me alone!” Stephen shouts starring into the sky.
Yet again people give him strange looks and try to keep their distance from him. Imagine a crazy man in the middle of the street having a random outburst. What would you do if you saw him cursing into the sky?
Imagine further that he tries to ignore his outburst and carries on making his way to work. He walks slowly and effortlessly gazing at everything around him. He walks into an electrical store for no reason and starts to watch the televisions. He sits down in one of the arm chairs and hears a familiar voice,
“My latest novel will be sold nationwide and will be in a book shop near you!”
Stephen jumps from the chair and puts his face right up to the television. The voice, he recognises it. It’s the voice from his head, the woman’s voice. She carries on speaking,
“Yes David, I will be available for book signing. I will be at Sally’s Book Store the whole of tomorrow, the 23rd June.”
“Sally’s book store, Sally’s book store, 23rd June, Sally’s book store, 23rd June, 23rd June.” Stephen mutters to himself as his sits down again looking extremely pale.
Imagine that you had just heard and seen what you thought was your conscience. I’m sure that you would feel baffled and unsure of what to do. This opportunity was the only way to sort out this voice in his head and tell her to leave him alone. Don’t you think that it would be a loss for Stephen if he didn’t grasp this opportunity?
He went for it. He couldn’t stop thinking about meeting the voice in his head. It puzzled him; he felt extremely agitated the whole night and didn’t get any sleep.
Eventually the big day came. He went first thing in the morning and was so early that everything on the block was shut and there was hardly anyone in sight. He sat on the pavement outside the book store and dozed off to sleep. He woke up startled and jumped up to his feet. The book shop was open and he burst in. He walked straight to the signing area and saw a woman sitting down looking rather tired and bored. He shouted out,
“Hey, Your name is Helen Hobbs, right?!”
“Unfortunately, yes” She mumbled without even looking up.
“Are you the author of my life?”
“What on earth do you mean?!” She looks up and took in a big breath.
“My golly gosh! What the hell are you doing here Stephen?!”
“Stephen? Stephen? How do you know who I am, I’ve never met you before in the whole of my life! And, here you are in my head talking to me!” Stephen grabbed the book and opened it at a random page and started to read out loud.
“Stephen lives a life of solitude. He walks to work alone, He walks home alone, and he eats alone.”
“How dare you and… Just how? I mean, why?!”
“You’re my inspiration Stephen!”
“I never asked or wanted to be! I have no say in this at all!”
Stephen walked away to calm himself down. He came to the conclusion that this could benefit him; Of course, he wanted to live his life the way it was, the natural way, the realistic way. But, he didn’t know what his real life would be like. He was scared. He knows this life he lives, he’s used to it. Changing it would be wrong, different and uncomfortable. He calmed himself down and made his way to the door.
