The Voice
The Voice
By Lucius Jack & Toast
Ever since
he was a boy, Dick had wanted to be a detective. He cared not for the gun
fights and other violent acts, he preferred the quieter way of catching
criminals where they had no other choice but to come into custody and hope
their lawyer could get them out.
Now, after
three different college majors, he was meeting with the chief of police at the
Nemometro Police Department. The chief in question was an old man with a big
bushy mustache, he wasn’t fat, but it was plainly obvious that he had once
worked out, then stopped. The top righthand drawer was bursting with junk,
mostly instant popcorn bags. A little secret to know about the police, is that
kids working nightshifts at convenience stores will offer cops free coffee and
popcorn to keep them around in the crime high hours of the night.
Dick made
his introductions (which were just a formality at this point) and was handed
over his badge by the chief.
That was
where it all began.
“Did you
hear that?” asked Dick, having a similar reaction to a balloon pop, or a jump
scare in a horror movie.
The chief
leaned forward and cupped his ear. “Hear what?”
He
couldn’t hear it of course; his mind was not attuned to the greater depths of
perception.
Dick jumped
up out of his chair and held out his arms, ready for an attack. From some
unseen danger, the type I was constantly surrounded by. “That voice! It
sounds just like me, except... like if I lived in the forties? … You seriously
can’t hear it?”
The chief
let out a laugh and waived his hand. “Oh that? It’s just your noir voice. Don’t
worry all detectives have it.”
Dick was
both offput and comforted by how casually the chief was treating it. The
schizophrenic unstopping narration for my now life, filled with darkness,
shadows, dames, booze, and darkness.
“Did
it just use darkness twice in the same sentence?” asked Dick, still looking
around the room for a speaker, hoping this was all some cruel hazing ritual.
“I’ve been
told that its volcab gets better over time,” said the chief.
Dick sat
back down in his chair. “And why is it past tense?” asked Dick, his voice
sounding a bit more like the one in his head.
“Fuck if I
know,” sighed the chief.
Little
did I know the reason it was past tense was because it came from when I was
shot dead by a gangster with a tommy gun. Just two weeks from retirement and with
a kid on the way.
“Waitwhat?”
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