Monday, April 4, 2016

VOICE-EDITTED

   It’s 9 am on a Saturday in a small, modern apartment in Austin, Texas. My voice wakes up on their stomach and gasps a little for air since they normally forget how uncomfortable the position is for them. They think about the night before and all the funny moments with friends. It was a nice break from the stressful week of waiting on tables for ungrateful people in a high class restaurant. Their find flashes back to when they and their friend witnessed a couple of drunk college guys steal a newspaper stand. They laugh but now they’re grateful that they can finally have a day to relax instead of run all over the place with a group.
    My voice after such a long time, because any morning requires that much time, rolls out of bed and ironically struggles to properly cook in the kitchen. Being a server definitely offers no ability to cook for my voice. They messily prepare a plate of eggs and biscuits from the Pillsbury Dough Boy brand. Why they never learned how to correctly cook? The world may never know.  My voice laughs mockingly and makes a snarky quip about the meal and eats it anyway. After breakfast, they throw covers over the bed, not even trying to make it look neat. My voice is okay with the messiness in their apartment and only cleans up when expecting company since appearances are important. They throw on a dark t-shirt and some faded, worn blue jeans. They laugh as they see just how messy their hair is in the mirror and makes a silly face to match it.       
   They are a very juxtaposed character since they can be not only comical but also melancholic. On the outside, they can be very sarcastic and they are the kind of person to silently add input in someone else’s conversation and accidentally end up saying it out loud, making it awkward for them and the other people. But deep down, they can be very serious, especially about troublesome memories. 
   As morning shifts into midday, they sprawl out on the couch and read a mystery novel. My voice loves mystery novels because they offer some hope that everything can have some logical explanation. Their mind temporarily drifts to a recent terrible incident with questions left unanswered, but they try to push away the memory and focus on the book. 
   Lunch is a pleasant meal of leftover Chinese takeout from the day before. My voice drifts back into a fantastical daze. Flashes of red and blue lights and faint whines of sirens drown out the outside world. Cries and wails of relatives get louder and louder. Almost immediately they snap out of it when they realized that thoughts of the tragedy intruded their mind. They make a mental reminder that just because not all the facts are present right now, it doesn’t mean they should obsess over it. 
   Often close friends accuse them of being heartless or strange but in reality, my voice is more of a matter-of-fact person with the occasional dash of humor to lighten it. Nonetheless, they’re straight-to-the-point. The day passes along smoothly into evening into dusk and my voice throws on a soft shirt and sweatpants. They lie on the couch captivated by the novel and eventually fell asleep with the book on their chest.

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