of the damned
They are supposed to help me hear…that is all…now they won’t shut up…once bought hogbellies on their say so, rich as hell..now they are constantly yammering, getting worse….
One night forgot to take them out…when I did in the morning they bit me, the jolt of pain like horseflies…blood on the plugs soaking in through tiny apertures…gone in seconds…damned if they didn’t seem plumper, sleeker, crimson fluid disappearing into tiny maws…
First time I put them in, years ago…symphony of sounds I hadn’t known I was missing…my feet crunching on gravel, piss splashing into toilet bowl like waterfall, click-ticking of turn signals, road noise, snatches of birdsong…I was dancing to it all…even the voice of my loving long-suffering wife…who was a bit puzzled. Overheard a bit of sidewalk discussion: “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.” Bliss.
With them out, everything was muted; hearing deficit spilled into vision…sun shaded, stars lost glimmer, could barely read, couldn’t hear sounds of life, cat’s meows, mice scurrying, long-suffering wife…
Fix was obvious…thought ”put them back in”…shuddered remembering my blood ingested…didn’t put them in…had to ask folk to repeat themselves, couldn’t hear birdsong or spring peepers…people got annoyed…music inaudible…wife’s suffering increased…I got fed up, put them back in, heard voices made of shrill feedback…”Welcome back.”…high pitched chortling…
Stock market advice…paid off…now they think they own my soul, two devils sitting above my shoulders…no consistency…try not to listen…afraid they’ll wear me down…can’t sleep for shit…they throw in the benevolent to throw me off…“Celebrate your wife, give your dog a cookie, help out a homeless person, donate to charity, get some exercise, eat healthy”…and they mix it with “beat up your wife, kick the dog, steal from the church, get shit-faced, support your local McDonald’s, poison a tramp, run over a chipmunk”…trying to hang on to self…my right, my wrong…haven’t killed anyone…haven’t killed self…harder and harder to separate yammering from own thoughts…I am changing into something…with a dark electric voice…people hear me and grow pale…
Can’t tell anyone…they’ll think I’m crazy…lock me up…drug me…I’m not crazy….I’m a therapist for God’s sake…not crazy…just feels like it…
Unholy mechanisms have grown wires through auditory nerves into my brain…don’t need batteries, living off my blood, brainwaves…ripping them out would kill me…maybe not a bad thing…brain is growing inexorably rewired…bastards are swollen like ticks, replete, throbbing…not about to drop off…maybe they will reproduce…
I am afraid
I am losing my grip.
~ Wry Welwood
7th of July 2021
In response to J.D. Harms’ July 7th word prompt in Scrittura: misanthropology.
Thanks to Viraji Ogodapola of Scrittura.