Unattended Baggage
Short Story
The noise was loud. It was so freaking loud.
He couldn’t get it out of his head. The all-permeating noises. He did not want to heal anymore.
The noise in him resembled the voices of all the people who had expectations about his life. It ranged from his parents to his wife to his boss to the man who dictated moral doctrine from a pulpit Sunday morning. The noise mixed with the road chatter as he drove down the highway to the airport.
The voices were telling him who he should be, the road chatter where he was going. Why was he still going back to his home?
He intuited the answer in silence. He turned up the volume of the radio station he was not familiar with as he rode to an airport that was not his, only to turn off the radio when the DJ decided to play the wrong song.
An uncomfortable silence that would force him to listen followed. The silence of the body. Staying still. Not moving. Not running away. The only sounds being the road chatter and the voice made of many voices he could not quiet.
The voice of perfection, telling him to excel always. No mistake to be made. No mistake was allowed. Errors were forbidden. How to accomplish this impossible task?
