Part 50
You look up into your teacher's concerned face and you realise that she looks like a nice sort of person. You're so accustomed to viewing teachers as the ancient enemy that you hadn't realised that she's always been pretty decent to your class. Could she help?
But then you realise what you're saying. Confide in a teacher? And about something even your parents know nothing about? If you tell her she'll tell the rest of the class and then tell your parents and pretty soon everyone will know. You can imagine the teachers now, chuckling about the boy having headaches for no good reason.
Worse still, of course, would be if they think there is a reason. You'll be taken to a doctor and poked and prodded until you're ready to scream.
No, you decide. You're not going to tell the teacher, or anyone else for that matter. You force a look of blank incomprehension onto your face in place of the pained frown you were not even aware of.
"No, Miss. Nothing." You say.
She looks at you, frowning and disappointed.
"Alright," She says quietly, glancing at her watch. "It's only two minutes until the bell. Get your bag and go. If you've got a headache you'd better get out ahead of the crowd."
With a grateful nod you do as she says.
It feels good to be out and in the fresh air. The wind is cool and sharp and for a few moments you really believe it can blow your troubles away and leave you free. It can't, of course, and that realisation begins to sink in as you walk out through the school gates and the noise of the traffic brings your headache back with its full, pulsating force. You've left your bike in the alley behind the school as you always do: the better to get quickly away, you usually say. Pulling the cycle out from behind the bin you parked it against, you need two attempts to swing your leg over the frame. This is probably a mistake, you know, but you're desperate to get home and bury your head under a soft pillow to block out the noise.
It is noise now, you realise. A roar of a hundred voices, or a thousand, or a million, echo in your skull as if trapped there and crying out for rescue. Your bike wobbles down back streets as you try to avoid the bulk of the traffic. Nonetheless, occasionally a car passes and you sway in their backwash, unable to maintain your balance.
The voices grow louder and soon you can hear individual words in the rush, a few voices louder than any of the others.
[Can you hear us?] A woman's voice, compassionate but authoritative. [Please if you can hear us you have to concentrate on our voices.]
[Relax your mind, let it open like a fist unclenching, each finger uncoiling in turn.] That was a man, his voice almost in harmony with the woman.
There are other voices too, some close and others more distant. They're murmuring rests on the roar of the ocean of cries.
[Relax.] [Open to us.] [Break Out.] [Listen to us.]
You're unaware of falling from your bike. You lie on the edge of the road, your vision faded o a glowing tunnel and the voices fill your ears.
Do you:
a) Listen to them?
b) Refuse to Listen?
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