I started playing around with this idea as a daily writing exercise while deployed to Bahrain back in 2004. I have a series of vignettes based upon this opening. I think it has some potential, but I haven’t played with it since then. Completely first draft, unedited, all the usual disclaimers. Enjoy.

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I was still pretty stunned. I wanted to put my back against the wall, so I could see everything that was happening around me, but since what was scaring the hell out of me was those very walls, I was at a loss for what to do. I couldn’t detect any movement in the walls like lips or anything, but I was definitely hearing something outside my head. Were there any speakers? I studied the walls for hidden speaker grilles. I could sense them watching me. I turned around, searching for eyes, lips, anything that would indicate where the sound was coming from.

“Oh, Dear. This happens every time. Just once, when we speak to someone, I wish we didn’t scare them half to death.”

“How do you do it? It’s as if you’re watching me, but I can’t see any eyes. You’re talking to me, but I can’t see a mouth.”

“We use a kind of telepathic projection. Nobody else can hear us. We’re very selective about who we talk to.”

“Yeah,” I said slowly, trying to get a handle on the situation. This must be what crazy people endured to make it seem like their world was sane. Now I’d lost it for sure. Well. Nobody else must know. I must continue on as before. I’d always talked to myself. That was nothing new. Except, for a change, I didn’t have to make up the other side of the conversation. The walls would give me my stories, I’d copy them down, and I’d have something to sell. “So, to other people, when I talk to you, it will seem as if I’m talking to myself, but I’ll really be talking to you, but they won’t hear that part?”

“Well, if you insist on talking out loud, it will seem that way. When you’re directing thoughts at us, we can hear them just fine. Strangely, to us, we can’t hear other thoughts, only spoken ones. When you were looking for ideas, you were wondering if these walls could talk. Since the thought was directed at us, we heard it and chose to answer.”

That might not be so bad. “So if I think thoughts directly to you, you can hear them? I can sit here and think a conversation with you and not have to say anything if don’t want to?”

“That’s right. We’d go crazy if we could hear every thought of the occupants of a given room at any particular time.”

“But you can hear what everybody says out loud?”

“As well or better than you can,” the walls confirmed.

I stared at one particular corner of the ceiling above the door. I weighed my options. (1) I could continue trying to come up with ideas on my own. (2) Since I had apparently summoned the walls, and they were willing to give me stories, why shouldn’t I take them up on it? (3) I really was going crazy, but maybe, just maybe, I’d get some good stories written before they took me away to the funny farm. OK, Walls, I thought, I’m ready to give you guys a shot. What do you have for me?

We’ve been composing our thoughts. Here are a few ideas we think might be worthwhile. Let’s get started.

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