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.<\/p>\n
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I was still pretty stunned. <\/span>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. <\/span>I couldn\u2019t detect any movement in the walls like lips or anything, but I was definitely hearing something outside my head. <\/span>Were there any speakers? <\/span>I studied the walls for hidden speaker grilles. <\/span>I could sense them watching me. <\/span>I turned around, searching for eyes, lips, anything that would indicate where the sound was coming from. “Oh, Dear. <\/span>This happens every time. <\/span>Just once, when we speak to someone, I wish we didn\u2019t scare them half to death.” “How do you do it? <\/span>It\u2019s as if you\u2019re watching me, but I can\u2019t see any eyes. <\/span>You\u2019re talking to me, but I <\/span>can\u2019t see a mouth.”<\/p>\n “We use a kind of telepathic projection. <\/span>Nobody else can hear us. <\/span>We\u2019re very selective about who we talk to.” “Yeah,” I said slowly, trying to get a handle on the situation. <\/span>This must be what crazy people endured to make it seem like their world was sane. <\/span>Now I\u2019d lost it for sure. <\/span>Well. <\/span>Nobody else must know. <\/span>I must continue on as before. <\/span>I\u2019d always talked to myself. <\/span>That was nothing new. <\/span>Except, for a change, I didn\u2019t have to make up the other side of the conversation. <\/span>The walls would give me my stories, I\u2019d copy them down, and I\u2019d have something to sell. <\/span>“So, to other people, when I talk to you, it will seem as if I\u2019m talking to <\/span>myself, but I\u2019ll really be talking to you, but they won\u2019t hear that part?” “Well, if you insist on talking out loud, it will seem that way. <\/span>When you\u2019re directing thoughts at us, we can hear them just fine. <\/span>Strangely, to us, we can\u2019t hear other thoughts, only spoken ones. <\/span>When you were looking for ideas, you were wondering if these walls could talk. <\/span>Since the thought was directed at us, we heard it and chose to answer.” That might not be so bad. <\/span>“So if I think thoughts directly to you, you can hear them? <\/span>I can sit here and think a conversation with you and not have to say anything if <\/span>don\u2019t want to?” “That\u2019s right. <\/span>We\u2019d 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. <\/span>I weighed my options. <\/span>(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\u2019t I take them up on it? <\/span>(3) I really was going crazy, but maybe, just maybe, I\u2019d get some good stories written before they took me away to the funny farm. <\/span>OK, Walls,<\/em> I thought, I\u2019m ready to give you guys a shot. <\/span>What do you have for me?<\/em> We\u2019ve been composing our thoughts. <\/span>Here are a few ideas we think might be worthwhile. <\/span>Let\u2019s get started.<\/p>\n [blenza_autolink 42]<\/p>\n 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 …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-walls","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/o>\n<\/p>\n