Never Listen (To the voices in your head)

1. CURIOSITY AND THE CAT

There was a loud buzzing, like a million bees had made the space next to his ear their hive. It was annoying and repetitive, going on and on. Nalu tried shaking his head to get rid of the noise, but it didn't work. It only made him look weirder than he normally did during his biology lessons.

People sitting left and right turned to see what was so interesting in the back of the class. Nalu could see his friend and roommate, Nwogu, shooting him fugitive glances from the corner of his eye, trying to stop him from bringing so much attention to himself, but he didn't care about that at all. All he cared about was stopping the buzzing noise, which seemed to get louder every second. He wasn't able to hear anything else. He tried closing his eyes, but that made matters worse bringing into focus his inability to hear anything else.

He opened his eyes to see his teacher, Mr. Goodsir, right next to his desk looking furious. From the look of things, Mr. Goodsir had been trying to get his attention, obviously trying to stop him from further distracting the class. Mr. Goodsir waved his hand in front of Nalu's face and he could see his teacher's mouth moving in obvious anger, but the buzzing didn't let up. It continued, giving him a serious migraine. Both of his hands were covering his ears.

'Please stop.'

'Please stop.'

'Please stop.' he thought repetitively.

But it didn't.

Nalu tried counting numbers backwards. His face squeezed in anguish but the buzzing kept distracting him. He tried focusing on the class clock, counting along with the second hand as it moved. The buzzing finally started to reduce. He closed his eyes and took a breath after every second tick. Slowly everything came back into focus.

The whole class was staring.

That was the first of many episodes over the next few weeks.

* * * *

Nalu learnt something in the following two weeks. The buzzing reduced in volume if he concentrated on it. If he focused he could actually hear something like disjointed words. This cemented the fact to him that he was going crazy. It was not like half the school did not already believe that already.

He learnt from Nwogu, that during his first episode, he was actually mumbling out loud and that it got to a point that he actually started shouting, "Please stop!"

At first the whole class had thought that he was referring to Mr. Goodsir, who was standing in front of his desk at the time. But when he kept on freaking out, they realized he wasn't talking about Mr Goodsir at all. Nalu fainting immediately afterwards and waking up in the sick bay about six hours later, convinced everyone that he'd had a psychotic break.

He didn't blame them. If he'd heard about something like this happening to someone else, he would've been sure that there was something seriously wrong with them, mentally. But since it was personally happening to him. he believed he was perfectly normal.

'But that's what all crazy people say.'

The buzzing got worse, to the point where it started happening every day. If he concentrated hard enough on it, apart from hearing some strange disjointed words, it usually stopped. He got so good at this that it could even happen in class and in a few minutes it would be over, with none the wiser.

Nalu assured the school nurse that it had stopped. For a few days after the first episode he had to have daily sessions with her. He couldn't let the nurse believe he was crazy. He was perfectly normal and this instinct, this impulse, assured him that he couldn't tell anyone about this.

He wanted to tell his friend about what was happening, about how the episodes where escalating. But every time he tried, his throat would close up and this little menacing voice in his head would whisper to him, not to say anything and that it would only worsen matters. He was sorry to say that he was more scared of this voice than whatever damage the buzzing could cause.