Whispers

Tara had been living in the house all her life so she was used to the constant whispers that came with it. Whispers of encouragement and love. When she married Jason they seemed happy for her. When Jason lost his job and started drinking they advised her to be patient. He would soon be the man he fell in love with again.

When Jason hit her the first time they agreed with her that it was an accident. When it happened again, they knew it was over but Tara wanted to believe in their love. She wore long-sleeved shirts and sun glasses a lot those days. The voices kept telling her to leave him, throw him out.

Then one day she had enough. She called in sick to work and while he was at work she changed the locks. Then she called him to say he shouldn’t come that night. For some reason Jason thought it was a joke. The voices muttered their disapproval at him and words of encouragement to her. When Jason came home that night and saw that it wasn’t a joke he broke a window and came in through it to show her his full displeasure. The voices howled in vengenace.

A week later when they let her home from the hospital the voices told her he needed to go away. In a permanent kind of manner. The voices kept plotting his death in every manner imaginable and the more Tara ignored the voices the more violent they became. Soon they were telling her to skin him alive, to trap him in concrete and let him starve to death or kill him by taking him apart limb from limb.

Tara finally decided she had no other choice than divorce the man and force him to leave, to make sure she didn’t end up killing him. “No”, he told her. He told her that if he couldn’t have her no one else could. The voices giggled gleefully. She would have to get rid of him another way.

So she did. And when all was said and done it was quite a clean cut affair. And the whispers grew quiet in their satisfaction.