The Voice That Knows

I need to tell this while I still have the nerve. What's been happening to me, I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but I need to know I'm not losing my mind. It started about six months ago. I've always been a light sleeper, you know? Since I was a kid. But this past year it got worse. Real insomnia. The kind where you're awake at three in the morning and you can feel every second crawling by. I'd tried everything, melatonin, chamomile tea, those sleep meditation apps. Nothing worked. If that makes any sense. So I'd just lie there in the dark. I live alone in this older building near the university, and at night it's mostly quiet. Just the occasional car passing, the building settling. Normal sounds. And then, maybe two months into this insomnia getting really bad, I started hearing something else. A voice. Faint, like it was coming through static. Like an old AM radio station that's not quite tuned in right. You know that sound, where you can almost make out words through the buzz? It was like that. And at first I thought maybe it was coming from outside, or through the walls from a neighbor. But when I got up to check, when I moved around the room, the volume didn't change. It stayed exactly the same level no matter where I was.

Here's the thing that made me start paying real attention. The voice wasn't just random static or some distant radio program bleeding through. It was narrating. Describing things. And the things it described, they were my thoughts. I'd be lying there thinking about work, about this presentation I had to give the next day, and I'd hear through that static, 'She's worried about the meeting. Wondering if she prepared enough.' Just like that. Calm. Matter-of-fact. Like a narrator in a documentary. If that makes any sense. The first few times, I convinced myself I was half-asleep. That I was dreaming it, or my exhausted brain was playing tricks on me. But it kept happening. Night after night. And it was always accurate. Always describing exactly what I was thinking about in that moment. 'She's remembering the argument with her sister.' 'She's wondering if she left the stove on.' 'She's thinking about calling her mother tomorrow.' I started testing it. I'd deliberately think about specific things, random things, unusual things, and wait. And the voice would narrate it. Every single time. I'd think about my childhood dog's name, and I'd hear, 'She's remembering Copper. The way he'd wait by the door.' I'd think about what I wanted for breakfast, and, 'She's craving pancakes. Blueberry, with real maple syrup.' I told myself it was stress. That I was working too much, sleeping too little, and my mind was creating some kind of auditory hallucination. I didn't tell anyone. I mean, how do you explain that? 'Hey, I hear a voice that reads my thoughts'? That's not a conversation that ends well.

But then, and this is why I'm calling, something happened three nights ago that I can't explain away. I couldn't sleep again. It was around two in the morning on Wednesday, October 16th. I was lying there, and I was thinking about this specific memory. My grandmother used to make this rhubarb pie, and she had this phrase she'd say when she pulled it out of the oven. 'Perfect as a picture postcard,' she'd say. Every single time. It was her thing. I was thinking about that, about her saying it, about the way the kitchen smelled, and I heard the voice through the static, 'She's thinking of her grandmother. The rhubarb pie. Perfect as a picture postcard.' Those exact words. That specific phrase that my grandmother used to say. The next night, I was listening to your show. Just trying to stay awake, trying not to think too much because I knew if I started thinking, I'd hear that voice again. And you had a guest on. Some psychic, talking about residual energy and thought-forms. And in the middle of her talking about how thoughts can leave impressions in places, she said it. 'Perfect as a picture postcard.' Those exact words. That exact phrase. The same phrase the voice had used. The same phrase my grandmother used to say. This woman on the radio, this complete stranger, said my grandmother's phrase while talking about something completely unrelated.