The Invasion

I closed my eyes.

Summoned to a duty of higher importance, my remaining senses instantly sharpened. Every stimulus in the room became magnified to my receptors. The jumbled voices were also beginning to separate; Distinctions between tones could now be identified.

I listened harder. The muffled words finally took on a definite sentence structure of their own, forming a clear picture of what was going through their minds.

She had two jobs and five kids. He had just celebrated his daughter's first birthday. She was in love with the little black dress on sale. He was struggling to save his marriage. She had suicidal tendencies. He was looking forward to the 8 o'clock news.

With every thought I deciphered, the emotions linked to them coursed through my body like jolts of electricity. Enough, enough! I screamed silently, unable to bear the sudden onslaught of sensations, switching to and fro in the blink of an eye. In a desperate attempt to silence the voices, my eyes flew open, but to no avail. They reverberated around me, filling up every last unoccupied space in the room. Stop, stop..no...

I slumped to the floor in defeat, the voices still clawing at me, refusing to let go.

She was right.