Can you hear me?

It all started in 2001. The world was on fire and everything felt wrong. That’s when the cough started. Nothing you would notice at first, late at night, or early in the morning, an itch in the back of my throat, like something crawling up and down looking for a home. It would usually be gone after my morning coffee or nightly beer. Just another thing to ignore, another thing to push to the back of my mind like everything else I didn’t want to think about. Then came the lumps, the lumps made me pay attention to what was happening.

It felt like an invasion, something that didn’t belong but had taken up residence in my body. They started in my arms. Small at first. Two on my left arm and one on my right. They were soft and warm to the touch, about the size of a small grape cut in half. I ignored these too for a time, much like my worsening cough, which had started to appear at all times of the day now. Things just kept moving and I didn’t stop to worry. After some time the lumps turned from three to five, bigger, warmer. I could feel them, just beneath the surface, growing and throbbing. I knew I had to see someone, to ask someone what was happening, but I was scared, of course I was scared, I think I always knew what they would say. 

“You are dying” The doctor said to me. A small woman, she looked like she should still be in school or college. She was looking down at some paperwork as she told me the news, her glasses slipping down her nose. She pushed them back up as she raised her head to look into my eyes, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear as if trying to lock the glasses in place, “did you hear what I said?” The lumps and cough had gotten so bad now, to the point that I couldn’t ignore anymore. They were in my arms and legs and every other part of me, varying in size and always warm to the touch. 

The cough was agonising, sometimes I coughed so much there would be blood. My ears were a new addition to my suffering, they would ring with a high pitched sound, consistent and ongoing. It would drown out most other noises around me. It was happening right now, I saw her mouth move, heard the word “dying” but nothing else, I had my answer. I stood and said “thank you,” always polite, even in death. I left the room. I left the hospital. I went home. My ears were ringing the whole way there. 

The voices came sometime later. Hidden at first and hard to understand, like a TV show at low volume in another room, they were in the ringing, the constant ringing in my ears was hiding the voices. They started as whispers, nothing more than saying my name in the dark quiet hours of the night. Gradually, though, they became more intrusive. It wasn’t like thinking, when you read something in your head and you can almost hear it, it wasn’t like a thought, it was as if something was sitting on my shoulder, resting there and saying things, it was external to my thoughts, separate from them. They appeared to react to my actions and words, they knew what I was doing and had things to say about it. Soon they started telling me what to do and how to do it. It became so bad that I considered ending them permanently, everything was getting too much. The cough filled with blood and the lumps that seemed to multiply daily, it was all too much. That’s when I heard a new voice, this one was filled with authority and hope, it calmed me and told me everything would be okay, it promised to help me get through this. I believed the new voice, something inside me knew this voice was a voice of good, so I continued to listen. 

The more I listened to the new voice, (which I had taken to calling Rex) the more my life improved. My cough had all but disappeared and the lumps were now sensitive memories. I had made another trip to the doctors and after many tests they considered me a miracle. I was cured or free of whatever was killing me. I can’t say that Rex was the one that cured me but everything got better when it arrived, I don’t think that is just a coincidence. I don’t know what Rex is, but it continues to speak to me, it makes suggestions on all parts of my life now, what I eat, what I drink, and what I do on a daily basis, it even suggested I write down my story, to make a journal of sorts and publish it, talking of my experiences. To what end? I don’t know, I have asked Rex this question and it says I will understand when the time comes. Rex tells me that others like me exist, those who can communicate with it and that we all share a connection. Maybe that is why it insists on my writing it down and sharing my story, to find people like me, rex is what connects us all. So I’ll finish by saying if you can hear Rex, if you can sense that something is not quite right in all this then find me, Rex will guide you.