Words on Strike

The words creep and crawl around the noise filling my head. They put tiny curlicued palms to Courier ears and stomp over the Arials to escape the din. We are in need of swirling silence, they want to say, but the other sounds are too loud for them to speak, so they continue to stomp, to cringe, to stumble around the latticed areas of my parietal cortex.

I stop suddenly as an itch becomes a steady burn in my head. They are getting upset and I can feel it. They are fighting back now, not simply scurrying away to hide in folds and fluid. I put the broom down; cleaning can be done later. Off goes the Spotify, twangy banjo cut off mid-riff. I finish chewing that handful of walnuts I wasn't really hungry for but needed internal noise to drown out the external.

I sit on my stool. It is green vinyl on a painted green metal base. The color has worn away where boots once fidgeted, now my bare feet. I get up from my stool because I remember there is one dish left to be washed, a load of laundry to be done, my bed has not yet been made! Those clothes on the floor should be hung up, organized, sorted, donated. And have I looked at the bathroom lately? Dust on the toilet tank...

I wash the dish.
I know this is a trap. I dry my hands and sit back on my stool. I stare.

It is quiet in this room except for the planes overhead and children laughing in the water and the occasional rumble of furniture being moved upstairs (this happens more than normal, I believe). It becomes white noise as I sit and stare and wait. The words uncup their ears and emerge from their hiding places. They wander and touch and greet one another and start to sing down the lines from the deep gray. They clap and dance and I can barely keep up with their ramblings but am joyously energized by the tumbling of symbols onto the page.

They want to be heard.

I only have to stop and listen.