Horton hears a what

I rewatched horton hears a who and was inspired to write something akin to it, thus birthing this. Take this as a sign that I am NOT DEAD and WILL RETURN!!

With that said, this thing is unfinished and highly self-indulgent. Idk, read at your own discretion, I guess?

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Am had never been born, nor would he ever die. In the reality within which he persisted, there was no concept of nonexistence, of anything ceasing. All there was, was, and all there wasn’t, wasn’t. In a sense, one might reject the notion that Am was at all, as he was more an absence than a presence. Yet, in the nothingness that made up his being, there were paths in the darkness, channels of inexistence, grooves in the bubbles of that which didn’t exist. These, together, all as one, became that which Am found himself as. 

An unbeing such as him was not uncommon in the thing beyond all things, and he never thought of himself as especially strange, either. Among unbeings such as the Ares and the Eis, he was downright mundane—a temperate fellow trying to make do in a nonplace where everyone who was no one seemed dreadfully interested in unmaking the unmade. 

So, in the instance when he came upon the little shining droplet, he was much excited. Light sparkled, so bright! Not-nothingness, but unlike the other not-nothings, because this one was like Am himself. 

Sliding into non-nothingnesses was not too uncommon, because some unbeings liked to play with nothingness until it became somethingness, though with no purpose save for the beingness of it, they were soon abandoned. Little granular specks of dead light paving the emptiness. Sometimes, he would be sad to see them, but they were often pleasant to hear as they crackled, eventually returning to the nothingness from which they had come. So sad! 

But this one was not like it. This one was special, because even though it crackled, it also sung! Beautiful little voices, just like the Mays, singing so sweetly. 

Enamoured with the beautiful little droplet, he took it into himself, and determined himself to listen very closely. 

He listened, closely, closely, and eventually, when he felt certain that the non-nothingness was as there as himself, he spoke to it, whispering softly. 

“Hello?” he asked. “Can you hear me?”

And down below, deep in the little shimmering droplet, someone could indeed hear him. 

Lyle Westchapel had been meaning to kill himself for two years now, but hadn’t quite found the time. With his boss downcutting staff and his landlord increasing his rent and groceries getting ever-more expensive, the rope just had to wait a bit more. Or maybe he should go with the sleeping pills? He’d heard that was the least painful method, but it also had a tendency of failing. The rope was instant, painless, and the look on his landlord’s face was delicious to imagine. Then again, the last time he’d tried, the lamp hook had pulled right out of the ceiling, and unwilling to explain the reason to his irate landlord, Lyle had been given no choice but to pay a rather hefty and no-doubt inflated fee for the destruction of property. 

Worst of all, over a year later, the hook still hadn’t been replaced, leaving one of the few rooms in his apartment dark and lifeless. Just like the rest of his life. 

Aside from imagining how people might react to finding his body and/or reading his suicide note, Lyle enjoyed watching admittedly terrible sit-coms, reading short science fiction stories, and scrolling on his phone every hour not spent working or sleeping. This would amount to about three or four hours every day, since he had recently trained his body to only require five hours of sleep. A habit whose health benefits he had never had reason to doubt before this very moment.

“Hello?” a voice had said. “Can you hear me?”

And Lyle, who was doing his annual rewatch of sit-com classic Dexter, suddenly recalled that it was three in the morning. He only ever got auditory hallucinations in the morning. This was unusual. 

He paused his rewatch. “Yes,” he answered the nothingness in his combined kitchen and living room, “I can hear you, oh spectre.” And the room was silent again. Silent, and very, very dark, save for the light of his laptop and the streetlamps filtering in through his blinds. They had changed them to LED white-lights last year, a horrible decision which made his otherwise adequate blinds woefully lacking. Another damning blow to his sanity. 

“Oh! Oh! I’m so happy! You hear me, truly?”

Another oddity. Usually, the voices were significantly less chipper. Nor were they this responsive. Then, he had gone mad, truly? Closing the lid of his laptop, Lyle stood up, and headed for the bathroom. 

“Hello? Hello! Oh, mercy, are you undone already? Don’t be undone!”

“I’m here,” Lyle answered as he unzipped his pants. His head was throbbing. Fuck, this better not be a migraine, Lyle grumbled to himself, I need to sleep. “Where would I even go?”

“To here, that is, nowhere! Oh, have mercy, pardon, do you know what you are?”

Once he had finished pissing, Lyle shook out the final droplets, and zipped his pants back up again. “Um…” That’s unusually philosophical, he thought to himself. “I’m an automaton of meat and electricity who thinks he is something when really he’s nothing at all, piloted by a ball of blubber and slime.” The same as all other beings unfortunate enough to be born as humans. 

“Meat? Meat? Meet, you and I? Oh, no! Pardon, it has already happened. Hello! I am Am, which is nothing! But you are not nothing. Very great! But since you are not nothing, it is very dangerous! Can you know, that I hold you inside me? Do you understand?”

Abso-fucking-lutely not, Lyle quipped internally. “Clear as ice,” he decided to say instead, because the voices usually only became louder if he ignored them. This one didn’t seem all that different. 

“Ice! Argh! I hate Eis! Horrible little things, do not become with them, they would unmake you with ire! No—no, do not unbe with them. Be with me! I will keep you safe, okay? Even if inside me, which I hope is okay, you will be okay, yes? Have mercy?”

“Whatever you say.”

“Good! Love, I love you! A non-nothingness with understanding… So great! But you are so small. How can you become bigger? Must you have other non-unbeings? To eat, or simply to have? Pardon, I do not understand you…”

“That’s okay,” Lyle muttered, making his way to his bed. His creaky, stiff, horrible bed. “Nobody understands me.”

“They do? Oh! Wonderful! Makes me happy to know you have friends! Are they who made you?”

Lyle tucked himself in, and realized with no little irritation that even as he laid in bed, the silence of the world encroaching steadily, the voice remained, ever-present. “You know,” he muttered to the air, “you’re asked me a lot of questions, but you haven’t really told me anything about you. That’s kind of selfish. You know that, right?”

“Selfish? Ah, that would be… Oh, yes! I am very selfish, thank you! It is not easy to remain oneself nowhere…”

Annoying. Not the voice itself, no, the voice was fine, downright pleasant. But the things it said were the very opposite. The fact that it had the voice of a wellmeaning old uncle who loved telling stories to kids, when combined with the speech patterns and inflections of said kids, it became even further aggravating. “Could you do me a favour?”

“What is a favour? Mercy.”

“Could you please be quiet?”

“Quiet?”

“Shut up.”

“Shut the what?”

“Please, stop speaking.”

“Oh! I understand! Pardon, you are right. I am much too chatty! The others, they are very quiet. Only interested in fooling and deceiving. But you are nice, and kind, and clever. So many words! Interesting words! How do you know so much, when you are so small and young? Much more than Am! Or maybe Am is stupid? Mercy!”

“If you’re dumb, would you kindly adopt the other meaning of the word as well?”

“Can they have many meanings, words?”

“The other meaning is mute. As in, don’t speak. Can you do that for me, Am? If not, I might really do it this time. I fucking might.”

“Ah! Okay! I will be silent. When should I cease silence?”

“When I tell you to.”

“Oh! Haha, simple! Very simple, I like! You make me happy, little one. Thank you for letting me keep you! So pleasant! But, I will be quiet now. Please tell me to speak soon, I am so excited! Let us speak of much and many and—oh, no, no! Mercy, I speak. Have mercy! Then…”

“Goodnight, Am.”

“Good… Night? Ah! Okay, yes. Goodnight, little one! Now—silence.”

And, indeed, then, there was silence. A thick one, that Lyle couldn’t really enjoy. Sleeping would have been nice. Normally, he really enjoyed sleeping. It was only one step removed from death, after all. If not for work, he would probably have slept all day and all night. Yet, now, as the exhaustion of a wednesday sank in and the stress of a thursday buzzed hotly, he couldn’t sleep. Night wouldn’t take him. 

Rejected by darkness, he rotated, back and forth, to lie on his side, and his other side, and his stomach, and even—hope abandoned—his back. Nothing. 

Unusual. Frustrated. 

Lyle was about ready to do it. Really do it, this time. Then he could sleep. That wouldn’t be too bad.

But first, maybe a glass of cold water. 

He sat up in bed, threw his feet over the side, and sat in the darkness for a few seconds. 

He heard voices sometimes, yes. Occasionally because of stress, at other times sheer insomnia. A few bad trips had done it, too. 

But he’d never been able to summon them at will. No one genuinely out of their mind could do that. That’s what the psych had told him when he worried about faking it, at least. Can’t fake in the privacy of his own damn bedroom.

The merciless darkness faced him. 

“Am?” he said to it. The instant the word left his lips, searing hot shame washed over him. What the fuck am I doing? Fucking stupid. Oh, yeah, because I totally want a psychotic break at… Five in the morning. Not like I have a shift in two hours. No, what I need now is to talk to my fucking imagenary friend, because middle school wasn’t bad enough. Stupid, stupid, stupid—

“Hello! Is it time to speak? Oh, oh, I must tell you, I saw another little droplet, just like you, but it wasn’t like me, and like you, it was only existing, but not. Sad! Have you been as such? I know your sort are impermanent. I hope you will not unbe. No, I will not let it! I will… Oh! Oh no! No answer, was I too hasty? Is it not talking time yet? Pardon! Aaah!”

Alone in his room, Lyle summoned a voice to speak with him, and he heard it, quite well. Neither loud nor quiet, old nor young, female nor male. Simply there. Slowly, he stood up. “No, I was asking for you. Don’t worry. Thank you for answering. Were you busy?”

“Not busy, no! Never too busy to speak to friend. Here, seldom busy… Though, sometimes hectic! Little happens unless nonbeings make them, but they are no good. Make and unmake too quickly. Like you! I do not make, though. I am simple, like that. You, too, seem simple! Do not do much. I like. We two, we chums, we simply aren’t. Isn’t that so?”

“That’s a bit harsh,” Lyle said, heading for the bathroom. “Sure, from the outside, I’m not very active, but I do quite a bit.”

“Really? Like what?”

“Right now, for example, I’m going to pop a clarity to see if you’ll go away.”

“What! Oh no! I want not to. Is that bad? Should I be silent? Silent, I can be; but go away, I cannot! You are too small and vulnerable to be on your own. I must protect you!”

“You sound like my mother,” Lyle said. His bathroom was barely the size of a closet, with the sink jutting out slightly above the toilet, making number two a matter of contortionism. Still, the sink had a window, and said window opened up into a medicine cabinet, so he couldn’t complain. What he could complain about was the fact that his tiny repurposed bottle containing almost fifteen hits of go was the least expensive item in there, with every other drug, salve and cream squirrelled away easily costing more than double the joy. To retain optimism, though, it was worth considering that none of the other pills could do an inch of what Molly could—curiously enough, against all sound logic, he’d never had a hallucination that wouldn’t go away with a hit. It took a few minutes, but like a charm, they would go away. A revolutionary medical marvel which he could never tell the world about unless he really wanted to test the strength of prison lamp hooks. 

Thanks to his tolerance, a single pill would seldom do more than leave him buzzed, while still flushing the hallucinations out of his system. Quick, effective, and cheap, compared to the rest of American healthcare. 

“Hello? Oh, mercy, answer! I do not want to go!”

“My name isn’t mercy,” Lyle said, popping one… no, two pills, just to be sure. He swallowed both. “It’s Lyle.”

“Pretty name! But I do not want to go. Please reconsider!”

“We’ll see,” Lyle said, exiting the bathroom and moving to his couch. There would be no sleep tonight. Even without the voice, he’d be far too buzzed to do anything save for recovering just enough sanity to get through work. At least the silence would do his mind good.

“This is not good. Why do you long for nonexistence? Outside me, you will be undone! This cannot be your desire. To unbe is not too bad, yes, but going from being to unbeing… Not possible without losing oneself! You will go away, and I cannot bear it.”

“I don’t see why you care,” Lyle said, deciding to humour the voice as it hopefully went away. “You’ve known me… What? Two, three hours? I have no clue what you are, but I’m sure some sort of omniscient non-being shouldn’t give a space-rat’s ass about a little human like me. Shouldn’t you have bigger alien-fish to fry?”

“Human? A human is…?”

Lyle leaned back in his pavement-found couch, stretching his feet atop his coffee table. “For an omnipotent being, you don’t really seem to know much of anything. How can you be in contact with a human and not know what it is?”

“A human? There are many of you?”

“Duh, of course! Humans swarm and fester on this hell of a planet. Approximately eight billion—that’s a thousand thousand thousand, in case you don’t know how numbers work.”

“A thousand, thousand… So many. Where are the rest? I can only know you.”

“How the fuck can you only see me? I’m not a super-special chosen best-boy.”

“Seeing, I do not know, but I know.”

“Unlimited games, but no games. Got it. Makes total sense. Then, if you see me, oh great Am, tell me—what do I look like?”

“Look… I cannot see, but you are bright! Much light, all shining. And for shape… As I said before, you are little droplet. Very cute!”

“Both of those are factually incorrect. I won’t even comment on the last part.”

“No? But I know. I have you inside me.”

“I don’t know what that means, but please never say it again.”

“Okay. I know. I am… I am very worried, little friend. I can know you, but you are not what I know. Or… the you that I speak to… is not the you… that I see…?”

“You seem to be having a bit of a mental break there, Am. Which… I guess I’m sharing, aren’t I?” It hit Lyle all at once that the beans should have started hitting by now, and yet, the voice was as clear as ever. That did not bode well.

“Human… is not what I have. What I have, is droplet. I believe… Oh, by the is… Are you… inside the droplet?”

“I don’t know. I’m inside my building, and my building is in New York, and New York is in hell, and hell is on Earth. Earth is a planet. Planets orbit stars. Stars make up the universe. I hope this is making sense to you because I’m starting to lose my Goddamned mind and I do not want to repeat myself.”

“By stars, do you mean your eyes?”

“That is the weirdest fucking question I have ever heard. If I wasn’t tweaking I’d agree for shits and giggles but I can’t right now. No, the stars aren’t my eyes. How would that even work? Stars are fucking huge!”

“Are you saying that you are so small that stars appear big?”

“Appear? They are big! My planet circulates one! And—and, oh, God, I’m arguing with my own fucking voices. Shit. This is it, isn’t it?”

“No! No, this is not… I must think. Mercy. This is… Very exciting! But also so scary! Stars, the smallest being parts, to make up greater things… And they are big to you? You be on thing, so small it orbits stars? And yet, somehow, by sheer complexity of… of… thing… you have coherence! Like me! You aren’t, like me! How? How is this possible? And there are many of you? Thousand thousand? This—this droplet… This that I have… It must be the most precious thing in all there isn’t. More lives than all nonbeings put together. How precious! If only we could speak on the same level, you and I! If we could know, and share space and nothingness, rather than I to hoard you… Argh! What cruelty! Are you okay down there? Are you well? How is life, in such smallness? Can I help?”

At this point, Lyle had come to the conclusion that he was entirely off his rocker. Somehow, his mind had conjured a creature thousands of times larger than the known universe, who believed that stars were the equivalent of atoms, and therefore believed the measly human population to be of incredible worth. Absolute madness. And it wanted to help him? Well, at five in the morning, with a shift in two hours, Lyle knew exactly how Am could help him. “Yeah, of course. Mind destroying the universe?”

“The—the…?”

Oh, of course. Dumb alien. “Unmake the droplet.”

“Unmake… you…?”

“Yeah. I’m sick of it. This world sucks. So, if you like me an inch as much as you claim to, please, by all means. Do away with it. You’d be doing me a solid, Am.”

“Wh—what you ask for… For me to unmake, the most precious treasure of the existing?”

“It’s reasonable, I’d say.”

“NO!! No, no, no, no, no! You—my little lovely thing, Lyle, you are… I cannot do this. Do not ask this of me ever again.”

“Right, right, sorry. It was worth a shot. If all eight thousand-thousand-thousand of us is too much, then, how about just me? Only Lyle Westchapel in New York, America. That shouldn’t be too difficult for a god of nothingness, right?”

“Even if I were capable of unmaking a speck upon a speck orbiting a speck within a droplet, I would not do so. You are my friend, Lyle, small though you may be.”

“So, you have limits? You’re not omnipotent? Some god you are, Am.”

“I am but a small powerless unbeing… To hold something like this is grand honour! There is little I can do to help you save for protecting you from those bigger and meaner than I. Even then, I fear my limits may put you in peril. Perhaps you would be safer without me? No—no! Stupid, stupid! Why must I always be so cowardly? You are a treasure. I must protect you.”

“A vast unknowable being with a saviour complex. Yeah, only my stupid fucking brain could come up with this.” 

“You do not seem well, my friend! If only I could help… Perhaps I could, if only I overcame my fear of the others? They create that which is all the time. If I, too, could make the is, perhaps I could help you? It pains me to hear your state.”

Lyle, with no need for exaggeration, was just about ready to do it this time, for real. “Yeah, okay,” he said to the air. “Do it. Go talk to them, get some magic powers or whatever… Create the is… I believe in you. Why the fuck not?”

“I know. Pardon! Then, I will go now. Be not worried, I will carry you gently. Or… Or, the droplet within which you are. That, I will hold gently within me. You, and all the other humans.”

“And the animals,” Lyle mentioned. “Don’t forget the animals. They’re these, like… Little creatures, some of them even smaller than us. They don’t talk or anything but they’re chill. Keep them close, hold them dear, all that shit.”

“Even more? Wow! Amazing. Truly amazing. If only I could touch you, to know how you were like, how you felt… I would like that, but I believe you are too small. You would be hurt.”

“Wouldn’t want that, oh unknowable one.”

“Indeed. We are of one perspective on that, little friend. In distrust of my peers, I will leave you with a part of myself here, enough to remain and protect you should they decide to take me… Should is be with us, it will not come to that, and I will instead gain a way to help you! The time it will take should equal to… one or two of the silences you gave me.”

“Wow. Not a lot of time needed to learn how to interact?”

“Do we differ there, too? It was agony! As will this be. But, for a friend… It is to be done. You have me, on that. May we speak again soon! Good night!”

“Goodnight, Am,” Lyle said, realizing only as the voice abruptly faded, that he was no longer having auditory hallucinations. Whether it could be called a success or failure, he could not know. Regardless, for the remainder of the morning’s hours, he did not sleep another wink. Not for lack of trying, either. His bed, the couch, the floor, his table… He really did try everything, but to no avail. With no other choice, he could only wait in preparation of the no doubt horrible day to come. 

At six thirty in the morning, Lyle left his apartment and headed to work. Half an hour to bike, but at least it was cheaper than the bus. And, honestly, quicker. Why the fuck had he chosen to move to the city, again…?

Well at work, he parked his bike outside, locked it with three different bike locks, and took a deep breath. Smile, Lyle. Then you might not get fired. 

Around the back, into the back door, get changed, put on the M-emblazoned apron and the stupid little hat, clock in, and greet his coworkers. 

“Cheeseburger, big fries, onion rings, sweet-and-sour,” Josh barked at him as soon as he took his place in the kitchen.

“Good morning to you too,” Lyle greeted, taking his place at the grilling station.

“What cat spat you out?” Pat asked him from the assembly station. “You look like shit.”

“You wouldn’t believe how I feel,” Lyle said, smoothly slipping into the typical working rhythm. If not for routine, he would have been fired long ago. The machines beeped in a way that only mildly made him want to shoot up his workplace, bi-bo-bi-bo-bi-bo, always demanding his attention, eerily similar to a certain other voice he’d been hearing as of late. Across the floor, Pat’s swift movements caught his attention. “Hey, Pat. You’ve got a PhD in psychology, right?”

“Psychiatry,” she corrected, putting together a quarter pounder with cheese and bacon, hold the veggies. “But, yeah. What about it? I’m not letting you borrow my DSM-5 again, last time the pages came back all crusty.”

“Ha-ha, very funny. No this isn’t about—” beeping, beeping, Josh shouting the next order, “—that. If I get diagnosed with one more fucking thing I’ll shout bingo and get erased from existence, I just know it. I’m more wondering about, like… Fuck, this is so stupid.”

“Unlike everything else you’ve ever said, done or been?”

“Fuck off. No, sorry, just listen, okay?” He flipped a burger. Sizzle, sizzle. Why the fuck was it so hot back here? Wasn’t the AC supposed to be fixed by now? Stupid Richard never gets anything done. Dick. “Is it… Is it possible to make yourself hallucinate on command?”

“Duh, of course. Don’t tell me you’ve never done shrooms?”

“I have! But… not like that. More like…”

“Dim lights, staring in a mirror… That sort of stuff?”

“No. Not even that. I mean, making yourself hallucinate just by talking.”

She looked up from her half-finished burger. “...Elaborate on that one. Talking?”

Shit. Maybe he should have gone with someone else. He was not in the mood to get psychoanalyzed today. “Yeah. Talking. Audiotory hallucination, sparked by me saying, ‘Hey, you there?’ or some other bullshit. Is that… possible?”

Hands on the countertop, she let herself lean onto them as her face settled into an expression of genuine befuddlement. “It… shouldn’t be? Unless you’d been in a constant psychotic state, but even then completely voluntary hallucinations… And you don’t have any other symptoms?”

“Nothing. Been taking my meds and everything, but it still…”

“And it still happens?”

“Not right now. He said he was—” Lyle bit his tongue. 

“He said?” Her eye glistened. “What did he say, Croco-lyle?”

“Nothing. Nevermind, it isn’t important.”

“Of course, nothing important about auditory hallucinations. Though, if you’re not having a constant psychotic episode, then… Maybe you should consider whether or not it really is a hallucination?”

“Heh. Right, good one.”

After a moment longer of staring at him, she returned her attention to her all-important work. “That said, now I’m curious. If you really can summon hallucinations at will, I’d love to see it.”

“If he returns before our lunch break, I’ll be sure to keep it in mind.”

“Nice. I’ll be looking forward to it.”

Unfortunately for Lyle, Am would indeed return before his much-coveted lunch break.

As he placed more frozen, never fresh patties on the grill, a voice abruptly came to him, louder than ever before, with a strong hint of mania. 

“Haha! I return, triumphant!! Yes, yes, I am triumphant—victorious! Oh, Lyle, what power you give! They were to take me, much so, but instead, by mock, by fraud, I took them! Perhaps you refuse to believe it, but now, I, Am, am even more large than before! Oh, yes, yes, I am large! And all thanks to you, little one! All thanks to—”

“Quiet,” Lyle whisper-shouted, urgently glancing at Pat, who had moved to the frying station. “I can’t talk to you right now.” 

“Oh? No, no talk? Argh! Pain! Painful! To force me to silence, yet again! Merciless human. Lyle, you little human, believe that I will have my vengeance. Oh, yes, I will have it!”

He looked to the left, and he looked to the right. No one was paying attention. Good. It was ten in the morning, and the sound of machines beeping and clanking and customers talking and orders being shouted was more than enough to drown out his muttering. “Are you seriously threatening me while I’m at work?”

“Ah. No, pardon, I was telling an untruth. Silly untruth! Please, have mercy. But I am have missed you, Lyle! Other unbeings never like speaking. Some cannot even hear! Dreadful. But you can hear, and speak, too! To tell to me new words which I do not know. Pardon, to tell me, what is work?”

“Fuck. Are you telling me you don’t have work in your dimension?”

“I do not know!”

“Alright, alright. Work is to do something you don’t want to do because if you don’t you’ll die.”

“Ah. Then, work, I do often. Unhappy! Perhaps, even, what I did with Ju and Hi may have to be work? I do not like to do away, but it had to be done. Ah! But it is good, because now, I know how to make!”

Fascinating. Really, fascinating. Especially the look Pat’s living me. Real fascinating. “Listen, can you get back to me in a bit? No, wait… I’ll tell you when to get back to me. It won’t be too long, I promise.”

“More silence? Argh! Painful! Painful! Pardon my agony. I have so much to tell, what a shame! But I will save it. Yes, for you! My little friend! Love. Love. Goodnight! I go silent now. Goodnight!”

“...Goodnight.” And then, the voice faded, and Am went away. 

A little bit—far from enough—Pat gave him a long, long look. “Did it actually go away from that?”

“It did.”

“Huh. Why the goodnight?”

“I don’t know. I guess he just… It doesn’t have any other word for goodbye.”

“Interesting… And you can call it back?”

“Yeah. Anytime, apparently.”

“That’s wacky.”

“It is.” He flipped a burger. “And you can’t explain it?”

“I’ve got no fucking clue what that means,” she said. “Maybe you really are being contacted by some sort of psychic creature? It’s worth considering!”

“No the fuck it ain’t.”

“Pshooh, you’re no fun.”

“I’m the most fun you’ll never have,” he teased back, a thin disguise for his gradually mounting panic. Wasn’t she supposed to know about these things? She had a PhD, for crying out loud! Or maybe that was all a ruse to watch him squirm. He never could tell. For some reason, though, his interactions with Am felt more worrying than even his personal troubles. If it hadn’t been for the natural passage of time, he would have liked to postpone his re-encounter with the mysterious voice even further. Unfortunately, it was not to be. 

Less than an hour later, gathered in the tiny, claustrophobic break room, both huddled over their own lunch boxes, Lyle gave Pat a quick rundown of his worrying night-adventure. “—And now, I’m here, still hearing voices. Or, his voice in specific, I guess.”

She fiddled absently with one of the tomatoes littering her pasta salad. “Huh. And not even the classic Molly helped?”

“Didn’t do anything.”

“Weird. Alright, um… I don’t have anything too sophisticated, but after my internship at bedlam, I’ve gotten pretty good at telling when people are faking this sort of stuff, so, I guess… Just call on him, and I’ll keep track of your mental state?”

“...Alright. Sure.” Tentatively, he turned to the air. “Uh… Am, are you there?”

“Yes! Yes! I am! Oh, it is so strange to hear you speak, but not to me! Who is it? Who do you speak to?”

“I’m talking to…” Lyle glanced at Pat. “...He’s asking who I’m talking to.” Pat, in turn, simply shrugged, quickly returning to focusing on his face. “Right, okay, um… This is Pat. She’s my coworker, and she knows how brains work, so she’s trying to figure out if I’m faking this or if I’m really talking to some sort of primordial being, or whatever you are.”

“Not being! Unbeing! If the Mays could hear you speak so, they would be much upset… Ah, but they never listen! Grr! Pardon. Coworker… You are linked in performing excruciating tasks? A friend, then?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Wonderful! Good! Good to have friend! Will she be my friend, too?”

Lyle spent a few seconds trying to parse the information given. Then, upon deciding that parsing it was the mental equivalent of self-flagellation, he simply spoke instead, saying, “He’s asking if you want to be his friend as well?”

She quirked a smile. “Sure. Why not?” Before Lyle could respond, though, she quickly added, “Though, as a side-note, this is the last thing I’d expect of your hallucination. I’d say it sounded like DID, except I don’t think DID exists, and I don’t think little enough of you to presume you’d fake it.”

“Thanks, appreciate it. Um, in that case… Am, this is Pat. Pat, this is Am.”

“Pleasant! Hello! Hello! Can you hear me?”

“It’s a pleasure,” Pat said, reaching out and shaking hands with empty air.

Lyle frowned at her. “Can you… hear him…?”

“Not in the least,” she said. “Why, is he saying something?”

“No, just…”

“She cannot hear me? Oh, sad! I must figure this out soon. Maybe my new powers of making will help?”

Turning his attention away from the most awkward meeting he’d participated in since middle-school, Lyle recalled a little facet. “Oh, yeah, didn’t you try to find a way to help me or something? How’d that go? Because that is absolutely something that happened that you did, because you absolutely exist in all of your nonexistence. Yeah.”

“Precisely! Yes, as I was to speak of, it went well! I met, I consumed them, and am now stronger, bigger, more better to protect you and to protect Pat and all other humanies! Wonderful, no? Better yet, I have power to make, now! I will try to use this for to prod into you… into droplet, to find you. Because, sad, I do not know where you are! All I know is you are somewhere in there, and I am out here. But I want to find you, because I think, if I can find, I can help better!”

“Lovely to hear. Go ahead, prod all you want, I’m sure this’ll turn out great.”

Pat frowned next to him. “...Prod?”

Lyle blinked at her. “Huh? Oh, uh… He wants to prod into our universe, or something.”

“Hm. Considering what you’ve told me, that certainly sounds dangerous. This whole thing actually reeks of edge. Are you sure this isn’t something your inner middle-schooler summoned? An edgelord’s wet dream made reality?”

“If you could actually hear him, you wouldn’t have suggested that.”

“...Has she finished speaking? I would hate to—”

“Well, excuse me for—”

“Though, I have never spoken to more than one nonbeing at a time—”

“I’m starting to wonder if—”

“Shut up! Both of you—just… Shut up. Could you not talk both at once? It is really fucking annoying, and I’ve barely slept all night, and…”

“Oh. Ah, mercy! Did not mean to harm. I—”

“Sorry, my bad. Though, then again, it’s not like I can—”

“Simply love to speak—”

Holding up one hand, Lyle successfully quelled Pat’s speaking, though Am, who couldn’t see him or anything he was doing, gleefully continued his chatting. 

“Because, as I have said, I love to hear your speak! All of yours. I first heard you singing, many voices… Perhaps it was all the others? Is that something you do often, to sing together, one big, all together? So pretty! Ah, but I can to hear it even this time, whereupon you are not singing.”

Lyle could feel his face contorting. “...Singing? You can hear us singing?”

“Yes!! If not for it, never would I have found you, and taken you into myself! Oh, it would have been terrible, for you all to go silent…”

“Singing…” The cogs in his head turned. “What can you hear them sing, Am?”

“Oh, many things! Much, I do not understand… About soaked cat, unanimous desire to be cat, descriptions of the good qualities of cat… Much about cat! Who is cat?”

“Uh… A cat is a sort of small animal, not a person, per se, though…” Two of those songs, Lyle knew. WAP was a pretty big cultural thing a few years back, and Everybody Wants to Be a Cat is a straight banger, but that last one boggled him a bit. “Would you mind explaining more about that last song?”

“Last? Oh! Good qualities of cat… Yes, he sing of cat nose, cat ears, and cat lips. I do not know what these are but he appears to like them quite a lot!”

“A song about cat nose, cat ears, and cat lips…?” Lyle mumbled to himself. Can’t be something from the Cats musical, then… 

“What’s new pussycat?” Pat said, completely out of nowhere, clearly with no relation to anything being discussed.

“Excuse me?”

“No, that’s the song. What’s New Pussycat, by… Gee, I don’t know. But it’s really catchy.”

“You’re telling me there’s a song about cat lips?”

“There is, and it’s just as weird and creepy as you’d think. But it is good!”

“I refuse to believe a song about cat lips could be any good. Sounds like it’d also feature salamander phalanges and tarantula-tongues.”

“Excuse you, it’s a real toe-tapper! You really can’t help but sing along. What’s new pussycat? Whoa-oaoa–o-hooo—!”

“What kind of gutteral tarzan-sound was—”

“Yes, that song! Very nice song. Whoa-oaoa-o-hooo!”

“I politely disagree, and please stop singing in my head, it’s really—” But as Am continued singing along, his voice uncomfortably clear to the point where pitch-tuning might be suspected, a horrifying realization began to seep it. “Hang on. Could you… hear her just now?”

“Pussycat lips—huh? Oh, I… Yes! Yes, I did! Her voice, not too pretty, but the song, good!”

Lyle’s lips slowly tightened into a thin line, and after a few seconds of listening to Am deconstruct Pat’s lacking musical ability, he abruptly got to his feet, and stalked over to the door, only pausing for a second before existing. “Pat, I want you to keep singing that song, and keep in mind that I have never heard it before. Heck—throw in some fake lyrics or something. I’ll be outside.”

“Huh? What the heck are you—”

Exit stage left. Before doing anything else, he paused at the door, ensuring that he couldn’t hear anything even if he tried. This was indeed the case. Content with his trial, he took a few steps away, and sat down, back against the wall. He checked his watch. Fifteen minutes until their lunch break ended. He turned back to the empty air, even if he knew he couldn’t be seen. “Hey, Am?”

“So thrilling—hm? Yes! Yes? How may I help?”

“Is she still singing?”

“No, she isn’t. Very sad… Ah! No, wait, she has begun to sing again! Lovely song. If only she would pay more attention to her rubato…”

“Would you mind repeating exactly what she’s singing?”

“Oh? Oh, yes, I would love to! Er-herm…”

With no convincing necessary, Am did as told, busting out lyrics that made Lyle question his sanity to a tune that was frankly way too catchy for a song about wanting to fuck a cat. 

“You, and your stupid fucking… shenanigans…” 

For a few seconds, Lyle listened closely to ensure that this really was the final line. “Right. You, and your stupid fucking shenanigans. Is that actually in the song?”

“Not the other one I heard, but it sings the same, so I do not mind!”

“Right. Right…” Lyle sighed, stood up, and faced the music, reentering the break room. 

Still on the breakroom couch, Pat gave him a long, suspicious look. “So?”

“Why was half of it a diss track about me fucking up orders all the time?”

“So you were eavesdropping!” 

“I wasn’t! It was… Fuck, I don’t know, Am could hear you or something.”

“Bullshit. You were sitting with your ear pressed against the door, I just know it. I’m not sure why I went along with this to begin with.”

“Because you’re bored out of your goddamned mind working a minimum-wage job?”

“Oh. Yeah, you’re right. Thanks for reminding me. That said, I still don’t believe it.”

“I wish I could say the same, but I can’t. This room must be fucking soundproof or something because I couldn’t hear you whatsoever. If you want proof, I can scream for a bit while you go outside and check.”

A sane person would, at this point, have dropped the entire conversation because it was absolutely ridiculous. Pat had over a hundred thousand dollars in student debt. “Yeah, alright.” As Lyle began to scream, only partially ironically, Pat exited the room, closed the door, opened it, closed it again, and finally opened it to reenter. “Shit, alright, yeah, I couldn’t hear you at all. You can stop screaming now.”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—oh, thanks. Am has been asking me to stop for a bit now too, so I guess it’s for the better.”

Still in the doorway, Pat crossed her arms, face scrunching up in an uncharacteristic look of uncertainty. “Right. On that note…”

Lyle knew for a fact he was mirroring her expression. “Yeah.”

“About Am…”

“Hello? Are you still speaking to your friend? I do not want to bother, but I am made lonely! Mercy, may I speak?”

“Not right now,” Lyle said, “your friend is having an existential crisis.”

“What?” Pat said.

“Oh, no, I was talking to—”

“What is existential dread? To feel bad for being?”

Lyle tried and failed to contain his mounting rage. “Am—please, be quiet for a moment.”

“Ah, like that… Okay, I will be silent. But do not to make me silent for long, or I become unhappy!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lyle returned his attention to Pat, who was considerably less excited now than only minutes earlier. “Right, so… Um…” He chuckled hollowly. “What the fuck do I do now?”

Pat shook her head in equal parts disbelief and shock. “I—I don’t…”

The clock on the wall chimed twelve. Ding-dong, ding-dong. They both turned to it as one, before looking at each other again. “Back to work, I guess?” Lyle said. 

“Yeah. Back to work…”

On the table, both of their lunches sat, almost completely untouched.

As Lyle returned to his station, he felt a small smile reach his lips. So, he’s real, after all? He couldn’t know for sure, of course. Maybe everything that was happening was a part of an even greater hallucination. Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he was dying, and this was his brain conjuring a final mad trip to go on before he croaked. Or maybe he’d been plopped into some ridiculous story ripping off a film from 2008 and nothing he did mattered. Who was to say? 

A little bit of scepticism was part of a healthy worldview, but he knew that none of the above were true. This wasn’t a hallucination. He wasn’t hearing voices. He was hearing someone. Someone who made themselves out to be some sort of god or something. Who was to tell? 

…Unfortunately for his sanity, Lyle knew exactly who to ask. As he manned the frying station, he muttered, not to himself, but to someone else completely, “Am, what are you, actually?”

“Hello! Speaking, again? Yes, yes, fun! So fun!”

“Why do you think talking is so fun? It’s just… Talking.”

“Just talking? I do not understand. Here, in nowhere, everyone always fighting! Argh! They make eat of others, hoping to become big, to avoid becoming eat of others. And yet, many can make to speak! Many, myself included, can discuss as to the why and the how of the eat, to where, and to who. They can discuss, who am I? What are you? And then they can make friends! It is rare, but I have come to know, that it is made friendships more often when they’re bigger. Because big, they do not fear! Small, always eating, constantly, constantly, terrifying, always! But big… Less hunger. Yes, we have three things—we to feel, we to hear, and we to pain. Some only to feel, only to pain. Terrible way to unbe! I will admit, I am big. I speak as big, but I have been small. To be small… Very scary. Always afraid, always hungry, always scurrying.”

“That sounds… Awful.”

“It is! I was so scared, so hungry, I even made eat of those of whom I could have made friend. Hunger will do such to one. I cannot imagine of how many I have made eat, the multitude which comprises my nonform, the presences who make up my self.”

“Are they dead?”

“Dead?”

“That is…” Lyle dumped a basket of fries into the fryer. “Dead, is to no longer be. If you did away with the droplet… Like I told you yesterday… We would have died.”

“Die… No, not quite. Made, being unmade, is not like unmade, being eat. The self is never removed, only… stripped of all else. Unmass, perverted into another form, made subservient of another self… Dreadful fate. But the hunger demands it.”

“You make the hunger sound like some sort of… I don’t know. Like a guiding instinct?”

“Perhaps. All of us have the hunger. Perhaps one is only freed of it by being made eat? I do not know. Perhaps there is a purpose to it, that it is to unite us all as one, a single unbeing. But I do not know why. Maybe there is no purpose, and to discuss it is futile.”

“The meaning of life, huh…?”

“Less of a mystery, that is! Unlife, I do not know. But you were made! Must be good to know for why to be. No, even better, to be! I must admit I do have a bit of jealousy for that. No fear of to be eaten, no hunger, no pain…”

“I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but we still have all of that.”

“What!? Oh no! This is upsetting! Horrible, horrible! If only I could know of whom you were made, then I could ask how to relieve you of such pains…”

Lyle paused, staring down at the bubbling, golden oil. “Hm. Somehow, I don’t like to know that something made us, but then subsequently abandoned us. Honestly, I can’t even process it. Isn’t that strange? I’m not even upset.”

“Oh, no! Do not be upset! To be made, to be left… It was good! Other nonbeings are cruel. If they had known of your self-having, of your worth, they would have… They… I do not know. But it would have been horrific, I am certain of it! Us nonbeings can do little but eat one another, but with you, had they known how to, they would surely have committed you to great pains.”

“Unlike you, who is entirely benevolent and only wants to help us by relieving us of such inconveniences as death, hunger and pain.”

“Yes, precisely! I am so glad that I should be able to speak with you, Lyle. With you, every moment is painless. You understand! Even if to speak to your friend would also be fun.”

“Well, you might not be able to talk to her, but if you really can hear her when she sings, then you will at least be able to hear her.”

“Indeed! Aaaah! I hope she will speak much, it would make me so happy!”

Against his better judgement, even though he logically knew that this was all a great basis for the existential breakdown of his 20’s, Lyle continued chatting quietly and lightly with Am. They had little to nothing in common, and the sheer existence of the other perplexed both sides equally, and yet, conversation flowed easily. There was something soothing in Am’s overt glee in everything, which infectiously enough kept Lyle from feeling too shitty about his work. 

In the evening, after a long day, Lyle headed home, though not after telling Pat that he’d message her later so they could continue discussing what the fuck was going on. Somehow, she seemed more harrowed about everything than he felt. As a matter of fact, he didn’t feel much of anything. In his mind, Am was nothing but a voice he was talking to, and that was that. Everything Am said was window-dressing, and honestly unimportant. A voice was a voice. Nothing more, nothing less.

Well at home, Lyle’s perception would eventually come to change a bit.

“...After that, I just couldn’t find it in me to try again. I don’t know. It felt like, if I didn’t succeed straight away, then there was no point, you know?”

“Perhaps! I do not know what school is, but it seems important!”

“Yeah, pretty much. My parents certainly think so.”

Dinner, television… All the while talking without much worry or care with someone who was supernaturally disposed towards listening, swallowing Lyle’s every word with intense interest. During it all, Lyle soon made the discovery that Am could hear singing even if it wasn’t live, prompting him to put on the Cats musical, since it was all singing, no talking. Am might not have been able to quite understand what a cat was, but he still found the songs and lyrics interesting enough to sing along at times, despite hearing the songs for the first time. As for Lyle, he was quite happy that Am couldn’t see him, since it meant he could scroll on his phone without having to look too much at the musical. 

And it was while he scrolled a certain social media site that he happened upon something more than ordinarily worrying.

“Poor Grizabella! Oh, she must be so hungry! I understand all too well… May they show mercy and reaccept her into their fold!” 

“Mhm…” Scroll, scroll, scroll… New species of frog discovered… Trailer for the next warhammer campaign… Someone ranting about their spouse… Astronomical photographs of disappearing stars… Crazy cat video… Another photograph of disappearing stars, this time with accompanying video of stars suddenly blotting out…

…But that shouldn’t be possible. It takes several years for the light of distant stars to reach Earth. Sure, Lyle didn’t know exactly how many, but certainly more than enough to make stars suddenly disappearing a physical impossibility. Curious about the possibility of correcting people, he checked the post. Thousands of comments, tens of thousands of upvotes. Most of the comments discussing how they had all been witness to stars blotting out, one by one. Latest comment only a few seconds old. Only a few comments mentioned the impossibility of the phenomenon, all of them downvoted into oblivion, the posters told to touch grass and look up at the sky for once. 

Slowly, Lyle put down his phone.

“Hey, uh… Am?”

“Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one—oh! Yes, Lyle?”

“Earlier today, you said you were going to, um, prod the droplet. What exactly did you mean by that…?”

“Oh, yes! Pardon, I should have explained more earlier. So much happened about of the singing, it completely slid away! But it is little to fear about, really. I am only sending in tiny tiny tiny tiny strands of myself into you! Each strand only a few billion star-clusters wide, very thin to move through to find you. But many of them, moving slowly inwards! I believe you will see them, and then I can know where you are for to help you!”

“Strands… of you?”

“Yes, strands of me! I have taken much care that my strands do not break the thin skin of the droplet, so as to keep you from popping. Difficult! Do tell me if something should happen.”

“Okay, right, but… What are you? What exactly are these strands made of?”

“Made of me! As unbeing, I am not made, I only am not.”

“That doesn’t make any… Fuck. Okay, hypothetically, if your strands are moving through the universe, what happens to the stars you encounter?”

“Stars? Oh, well… They are unmade, of course. If I knew better how to make then maybe I could avoid hurting, but since they are only specks, I think is okay! Is okay, right?”

Lyle paused the musical. He took a shallow, slightly shaky breath. “I… I don’t know. I have to go check.”

Standing up, he headed for the window. Outside, the sky looked the same. But he lived in the city. A dense, light-polluted city wherein only the nearest stars and planets were even slightly visible. Fuck. He felt stupid for so much as entertaining the thought, but with panic mounting within his chest, he couldn’t help it. Cursing under his breath, all to the accompanying notes of Am’s worried voice, Lyle headed downstairs, unlocked his bike, and headed out into the mid-spring night. As he biked towards the edge of the city, the sky gradually changed, darkening into inky blackness, the stars slowly, gradually becoming more visible.

“Is everything okay? You seem scared. Are you? I can stop, but I want to find you. Are you okay, Lyle?”

I have no fucking idea, was all Lyle could think, but he knew he couldn’t say it. Was there anything he could say? Paradoxically enough, his brain buzzed with thoughts while his heart beat a steady, rhythmic thumping. He didn’t feel much of anything, aside from feverish shame at how stupid he was to be biking out of the city in the middle of the night, all because of a damn voice he was hearing. He must really have been going stark raving mad. 

At least, that’s what he thought until he got out of the city properly. A large, empty road stretched before him, shaded on both sides by thick foliage. No streetlamps, no traffic, just him, the forest, and the sky. The cloudless, eternally dark sky. And looking up, it honestly looked just fine. It was the same as always. Maybe aside from that one unusually dark spot, though, but that could be…

No, that spot was absolutely something. A spot in the sky, a dozen times wider than the moon, was partially bereft of stars. In the starless city night sky, it wouldn’t have been visible at all, since only the very brightest stars were visible. But here, the case was much different. Here, the entire sky seemed covered in a thin veil of stars, too numerous to be counted by one mind. 

All aside from a single spot. A spot that seemed to be growing bigger. No, not seemed, it was growing bigger. As Lyle watched, too stunned to reply to Am’s ever-anxious requests for interaction, the spot expanded, devouring more and more stars. But not all at once. There were stars in front of the expanding darkness, closer than the ones further behind. Stars that would soon join the darkness. 

Like an ever-expanding god of darkness, it ate. Star after star disappeared into the darkness, closer stars on top of the darkness joining as well. Bit after bit of the night sky, consumed by nothingness.

Am checked his phone again. More posts about the disappearing stars. Not just stars, though. Galaxies were going missing, too. But the most worrying aspect was that they could see it. The way light worked should not have made it possible for these disappearances to happen so close to each other, and yet, as could plainly be seen on the night sky, the disappearances were indeed happening, and had been happening for… A couple of hours now. The first disappearance was recognized around thirteen that day, a few hours after Am had begun his “prodding.”

His… prodding…

Suddenly, his phone lit up, showing a screen he very seldom saw—the phone call screen. Pat was calling him. Helpfully enough, he answered. “Hey.”

“Hey, Lyle, what the fuck did Am mean when he said he was going to prod the universe?”

“You’re looking at the sky, aren’t you?”

“No, the news. It can be seen in the sky?”

“Yeah, if you’re outside the city.”

“Great, so you can see it too. The news are saying several galaxies have fucking vanished without a trace. Something about a supermassive black hole or something. Got any clue what it might be about, God’s-personal-tin-can?”

“Pat, I cannot overstate how much I have no idea what the fuck is going on.”

“Wonderful. Excellent, really. Fuck. I don’t even… Listen, I don’t know either. I hope this is your fault, because then you can stop it. The experts on television have calculated that assuming the ‘supermassive black hole’ is actually distorting space time to make us see what is happening now and not what happened X years ago, then it’ll be here within the next… uhh… six or so hours. So, if you happen to maybe know someone whose fault this might be, then it would be a pretty good idea to ask him to maybe stop fucking destroying the universe? But what do I know? I have no clue what’s going on!”

“...I’ll give it a shot, I guess.”

“Thanks. And, hey, if it doesn’t work? No work tomorrow!”

“Yeah. I guess. Um, listen…”

“What is it?”

“Thanks for checking in. I was afraid I might still be hallucinating, so this is…”

“Dude, I wish you were hallucinating, would save me the trouble of worrying about if I’ll die in the next couple of hours or not.”

“Yeah. Right, right… I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Good. I’ll call you again in a bit, but I better see a special report within the hour that the fucking thing has stopped moving.”

“Okay. I’ll try to make that happen. Good—”

“Bye.” Beeep. He stared at the phone for a few seconds, watching the screen fade to black. He’d consider it rude if it wasn’t her. That said…

“Am?”

“Yes! Hello, you were speaking, but not to me, so I didn’t bother you!.Instead, I found… There is someone listening also to the Cats music, so I waited until it came to the point we were at, and continued listening! Aah! Good music! Lovely, lovely cats! I wish to meet a cat someday… Oh, and you, too! Would be so fun! I hope to find you soon!”

“Yeah, uh, about that… Could you stop probing for a second?”

“...Hm?”

“That is, um… Just… stop moving your strands for a little bit. I’ll tell you when to continue, okay?”

“Oh. Oh, okay! Do you see them??”

“I think I can see one. It’s causing a bit of a stir down here, so to speak…”

“It is? Are you excited too?? If you can see me, I must be close! Oh, I am so happy!! But, yes, I will be still, yes, yes. Is that okay? When can I move? I wish to meet you soon!”

Up in the sky, the stars stopped disappearing. The black blot in the sky ceased expanding, and Lyle felt like an absolute lunatic. But it wasn’t enough for him. He knew, logically, that this should have been more than enough proof. Unfortunately, Lyle happened to have emotions that refused to simply accept things the way they were. So, as he stared up at the sky, observing the dark blot, he said, quite low, “Am, could you… move your strand to the side?”

“The side?”

“Yeah. That is, first to one side, to make a line, and then another one crossing the first. Does that make sense?”

“Oh! Oh, yes, much sense! Not to worry, I understand very much. Let me try…”

Up in the sky, the dark blot began to move again, sliding slowly to one side, obliterating stars and galaxies, to then abruptly stop, move back half of the distance previously travelled, and draw a vertical line, creating a cross in the sky.

“And… there! Haha, yes! Since I do not know which thread you asked for, there are now these patterns everywhere in you… Mercy! Speaking of, may I seek? Simply say when you notice thread moving and I will know which it is!”

Not giving Lyle any time to recover from what was happening, Am went straight into figuring out exactly where Lyle was. Considering the sheer quantity of “strands” that Am had made, Lyle expected a long-winded chase for the right one, fraught with mistakes, miscommunication, and—”Oh, hey, it just moved.” Damn, that was quick. “Lucky number one?”

“Hm? Oh, no, this is twelve thousandth, four hundred and eighty third! But, yes, very early. Lucky, haha!”

Lucky, and yet another testament to the strangeness with which Am operated time-wise.