The Noise of Ideas

It’s Tuesday, so that means another Inspiration Monday prompt courtesy of BeKindRewrite. I went with the prompt “the noise of ideas this week.” Be sure to follow the link, write something yourself, and check out some of the other writers great pieces.

 

Horse’s father was not what you might call a great conversationalist. Nor would you call him a chatterbox, raconteur, fabulist or storyteller. As a child, Horse often wondered if his father was only allowed to say a certain number of words a day, maybe a gypsy or witch cursed him, and if he went over that limit he would die.

His father would listen, as Horse told him about his day at school or a movie he had seen. He might nod or shake his head or crease his eyebrows, but never spoke. Once when Horse refused to eat his vegetables, and after arguing, yelling and threatening, his mother looked to her husband pleadingly. He uttered one word.

“Eat,” he said, his voice like two mountains crashing together. Horse finished off his broccoli and carrots without argument from then on.

His father showed affection in other ways; laying his arm across Horse’s shoulders as they walked somewhere, tousling his hair after he did something rambunctious. They played catch and made model airplanes together. They did everything fathers and sons did, except they did it in one-sided conversations.

Despite his gruff, unspeaking manner, Horse never doubted for a second his father loved him. But he did often fall asleep hoping to find the gypsy or witch, and reverse the curse.

Years later, after the priest had mumbled his benediction and the men began to shovel the earth on the wooden box his father’s body laid in, as they sat at the kitchen table and moved the food around on their plates, occasionally spearing a piece of food with their forks and lifting it halfway to their mouths, only to drop it again as the grief shuddered their bodies. It was only then Horse remembered his father’s voice. He asked his mother to explain why his father had so seldom spoken.

His mother’s wet eyes looked across at him, and then shifted to the left where his father would have, should have been sitting. She set her fork down on her plate and crossed her hands on her lap.

She spoke softly, saying he loved them both very much, Horse should know that, and that he was a smart man, but troubled. Terribly troubled. Mental illness cut a wide path through his family. He had difficulty concentrating on all the noises in the world, but especially those in his mind. And if he spoke, his words would echo and ricochet around his head. A simple sentence would turn into a symphony of ideas, and then that symphony would bounce around, turning into a cacophony. It caused him to have terrible headaches, hallucinations. Made him break away from reality, and sometimes turn to violence. But he could control it, she said, if he kept his mouth and mind quiet.

Horse listened to his mother but also to the thoughts, making sure he didn’t hear them repeating, parroting off the walls of his mind.

They moved the food around on their plates some more.