Sound

Today, has been such a productive day writing my  current thriller! I will explain why in the next post. In the mean time today’s WordPress writing prompt word is, “sound”. So here’s an excerpt/teaser from my current story, showing Charlotte’s  experiencing first date nerves with Joseph and her voices return. If you’ve not read the first excerpt I posted, to tie it all together you read it  can here.  and here Charlotte is a thirty-five year old woman, with mental ill health, sadly she has been found guilty of a murder she says she did not do…She is on a mission to prove it.

Saturday

 It’s  6:00 a.m. I can’t sleep. Working shifts as a nurse your sleep pattern becomes erratic. Add that in with my paranoid state and it’s an explosive mix. After a week of early shifts at the paediatric ward this week, my body clock is still on early wake up times.

Sitting in the kitchen wrapped up in my fluffy dressing gown and slippers, I wait for my Chamomile tea to brew.  For the last hour, I’ve been thinking about my date with Joseph today, at first it was all happy thoughts. I had butterflies, just like any woman would, at the thought of a first date with a guy she really likes.  

 I’m now gripped with panic and fear, the voices have come back. Not the kind pleasant voices I sometimes hear. The dark spiteful voices, that kick at my self-esteem, appearance, and intelligence. I wish she’d go away. Sometimes it’s a male voice I hear. This morning it’s female, a bitchy female warning me that “Joseph’s really is not that into me, he’s just using me, there’s no way someone like him would be interested in a girl like me.” I stand up and light a cigarette, then start to pace the kitchen floor.

“Go away! Go away leave me alone, not today please. Today is important to me

argh!!”

 I can hear her, loud and clear bitching and cursing me. The usual process starts, with me looking like a crazy woman, having an open argument with the thin air. Begging and pleading with the voices to stop. There have been times where I’m going about my usual business walking down the street, on the buss, or at the supermarket and they plague me. Randomly  I start, ranting at the voice in my head, that no one else can hear. People stare, they move away from me. Kids even laugh at me.

“He is not using me! What the hell do you know anyway? You’re just a voice you

don’t know anything.”

I pull harder on my cigarette, then fill my lungs with smoke.

“Go away! Go Go!”

Then it all comes back to me, the first time my parents noticed something was not quite right with me. That there was more to my “odd teenage behaviour”. I was just eighteen at the time. Trying to focus on my A-level studies at college when it all came spilling out … My first experience of a mental institution, my first real mental break down.

June 1998

“She’s done it again Paul, I just went up to her bedroom she’s lying on the bed zoning out, her windows are completely blacked out with paper; I can’t understand what’s got into her.”

“Me neither darling, let’s just hope it’s a teenage thing that she’ll grow out of.”

“I think we should get some help for her. She’s been acting out of character for  

months”

 Susan stares blankly at her husband of twenty years, his dark eyes look sad, as he runs a hand through his thick chocolate coloured hair, now with signs of grey around the temples.

 “What kind of help?”

 “Maybe we should see the GP first.’’

 “Do you really think Charlotte will agree to that? Every time we ask her how

she’s feeling she says she’s fine.”

 “She probably won’t but, it’s getting to the point where I’m worried Paul. She’s

up all night, spends all day in her room, barely eats, misses college. How is she

ever going to achieve the grades she needs for university if she carries on like

this? What sort of future will she have?”

The question hung in the air as Mr and Mrs Price- Smith   stare at each other.

Bang!

The pair look up at the kitchen ceiling, as they hear Charlotte’s screams and banging from above……