This is the story of Patrick, and it starts with him waking up. He stares at the ceiling for a moment as the haze of sleep begins to dissipate from his dark eye sockets. As he begins to clear his mind, he looks around his room, startled, as he realizes what has woken him up: a voice. He doesn't like the voice; it is deep, British, and a bit snobby, and uses an annoyingly prosaic form of English. Patrick looks around his cramped room frantically. “Where is that voice coming from?” he thinks. Then, as the last dust bunnies of sleep jump out of his eyes, he realizes the voice is talking about him. Yes him! Patrick, with his short brown pillow-tousled hair, his crooked frown of confusion, and his long gangly limbs. He jumps out of bed, his head almost hitting the slanted ceiling of his attic apartment, causing him to trip over himself. Collecting his limbs from the floor he scans the room for the source of the voice and spies the closed door to his bathroom. Springing up and running to the door he throws it open, revealing the obvious fact that no one else is in his tiny, tidy, wooden room.

 

Patrick stands there for a moment, bewildered. His gaunt face sags motionless on his skull as the voice continues to describe his actions, or rather, his lack thereof. He considers for a moment, “Could someone be playing a trick on me?”. He then shouts, “Who are you? How are you doing this?” but the voice just keeps speaking about Patrick’s thoughts and actions as if he were alone. Which, of course, he was. Patrick stays motionless; he is confused, scared, in shock, and, to his surprise, still a bit miffed that he had been woken up so early. “Although,” he thinks, “I should get there early for the signing.” His thoughts comeback to the voice as it continues to speak.  

 

He steps into the bathroom and stares into the reflection of his eyes. Had He taken something the night before? What is this? Should he call out from work? These are all normal responses, but Patrick’s response is much more unusual. The gears in his brain click and clock as he turns, climbing into the shower, a plan brewing in his head for how he will handle this throughout the day.

 

It takes him a few moments of silence to notice that the voice isn't constant.

 

In fact, it has left him alone for all but a moment in the shower. However, each time it comes back it makes him jump a little.  He resents the voice for commenting on this fact.

 

Patrick dries himself off, rubbing his skin quite raw as he scans the bathroom for prying eyes. Who could blame him when he has a voice narrating his every move? “It isn’t my every move though,” he thinks. “It doesn’t always say what I am thinking, sometimes just that I am.” He stands there for a moment pondering this thought, but quickly realizes he doesn't like listening to someone describe him thinking about someone describing him while he is thinking, and goes back into his bedroom. He sweeps the black slacks of his suit off the floor, hopping on one foot as he pulls a leg on. He keeps thinking about the voice, and then, as he stops to put on the other leg, he imagines “How can I even be thinking of going to a book signing?” and falls into his desk chair. He has no idea what he is going to do, and he doesn't appreciate the voice reminding him. After all, the ego of a best-selling author is a bit touchy.

 

Patrick sits there mortified with his back to the desk staring at the wall, as he contemplates if he is going crazy. It would be little wonder; Patrick always sees himself as a bit off, whatever off means. It is just now however, that the voice becomes overwhelmingly annoyed by Patrick’s self-pity and decides to just come right out and say, very explicitly, that Patrick, is not, crazy. Patrick stays sitting for a moment, trying to find a reason to believe the voice. He is, of course, listening to someone in his own head speak about his own thoughts. “No one should be able to hear my thoughts,” he thinks, “much less provide commentary on them”. It should not be possible for anyone or anything to know exactly what you are thinking. Yet here he is listening to someone that sounds a little too familiar to be comfortable, taking mental jabs at his psyche.

 

He spins around in his office chair and leans on his desk, looking out the small porthole window that sits right above his metallic green typewriter. He watches for a bit through the window; the park across the street is abnormally busy for the shabby day London is having. He looks on as people mill about, grateful that, for once, the voice isn't just talking about him. He just cannot get off of how deep inside his head the voice is. It knows everything he thinks as he thinks it, and it is driving him crazy. His thoughts are getting frantic and wild, and it is becoming quite difficult for the voice to not only articulate his thoughts, but to keep them in time. “This is good,” he thinks, smiling, and then immediately becomes upset, realizing he has steadied his train of thought, making the job for his narrator much easier.

 

Patrick is scared. More so, because the voice knows it, and him hearing this is only making it that much worse. He holds his head in his hands, running his fingers through his damp hair as he breathes heavily. Patrick isn't used to thinking about himself this much. He is a fiction writer! He makes up characters so he doesn't have to write about himself. He doesn't like that the voice is accentuating his own fears and emotions. It is, after all, just telling his story, but it is a version he has never wanted anyone to hear, not even himself.