And So It Begins

The voices tumble around, boiling together to create a marshy cacophony from which no one voice can arise intelligible. It would take some sort of super-sleuth electronic separating device to coax one voice to secede from the others. The noise is a constant hum in the background of Payton Jewel’s mind. She has lived with this background buzz for so long, that she very rarely even notices it any more. It is no longer a “thing” – it just IS.

Lately, however, more voices must have melted into the bog, because Payton was having trouble hearing her own voice. She couldn’t finish a thought. Her mind skipped along as merrily as a spring bunny from thought to thought, nibbling at each fresh tendril of a thought without truly tasting it before hopping along to the next tendrils. At first it was mildly annoying. Now, this gentle little spring bunny had succeeded in bringing Payton’s entire life to a full stop.

In one of her more focused moments (her brain bunny must have been asleep) Payton decided she must take action. What to do, what to do? How to act? What steps to take? Where to begin? How to begin? Payton’s mind started to reel and her world set to spinning. STOP!

“All right. I can’t deal with this any more. It’s a wonder I can even get out of bed in the morning with all of you. Who are you? What do you want? Why are you here? Somebody step forward and start talking now!”

For just a moment there was a complete and total silence. It was eerie, rather like the calm before a storm.

“Uh-oh”, thought Payton. “I’ve really done it now. I feel a world of hurt about to rain down on me…”

An unnatural sucking noise resonated around Payton, interrupting her thoughts as a large dark form began to take shape and step toward her.