Don’t look up

That was the last thing that people heard the voice upstairs say, but it wasn’t the first.

It started off as a small creak in the floor, a little disturbance to the late night news on tv.
Distant wailings in your otherwise quiet neighbourhood.
Minor inconveniences, delaying but not stopping the day to day.

Sometimes your keys may go missing as you’re about to leave the house for that job you are already late for.

Sometimes you would flip to a channel that you swore was at 285 only to be greeted by white noise at first and then flash of images, fictional images, or so you hoped.

Then in a few days, the TV would stop working all together.

And random books would fall from your shelf, books you don’t remember buying.

That was the trouble with the voice, it didn’t make you do anything, it just stopped and nudged you.

And then the whispers would start.
By then it is too late.
The more you listen to them the louder the whispers grow.
You can try drowning them out with distractions, shows, reels and people alike,
And it might help for a while.

But the whispers are only muted, not silent,
When the noise stop they are all that remain
With terrifying questions of what if and why not?
And you would have no answer to whisper back.
And even if you did, how would you look, whispering to yourself?

You can try talking to other people about this,
They won’t understand a word you are saying.

There are no whispering voices,
There is no channel 285.

And just when you think, that you are slipping into madness,
Looking down at the moving traffic of the sane city from your terrace.
The voice will calm you down and say, if it is sane that you seek to be,
Don’t look up