Digressions of a Dilettante

Digressions of a Dilettante
Vignettes of Inanity by Bud Hearn

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The Voice...Reminiscences of the Past

The Voice....
Reminiscences of the Past


The red light on the answering machine blinked rhythmically in the dark room as he entered. It was a cold November night, and something warm was necessary.

Who’s calling,” he wondered? He pressed the “play” button, and it responded instantly with a Voice...so soft and smooth—its Southern comfort oozed through the ethereal mystery of the wireless air into the answering machine. It was feminine, to be sure.

The voice was one of those that has body—presence, one might say—that fills all the empty spaces of a room. It was the kind of a voice that had kind hands that reached through and grasped--invisible eyes that pierced the hard surface of the soul and melted it as hot butter. It had arms that reached out to hold, to hug, to cling, to embrace.

It was a voice with a growing smile that could be felt deeply in the heart, a smile that mesmerizes the attention and by its gaze holds one helpless as in a trance. In short, it was a voice to which, no matter what the question, could only be answered, "Yes." The voice could soothe the hard creases of the day’s turmoil, lightening the listener’s load with its quiet confidence.

And as though magical, it was a voice that vaporized all barriers and the listener was only to be able to utter a weak and feeble, "Yes," to its plea.

It was also the kind of a voice that causes a momentary flash of insight, a moment so shockingly revealing that it carries a death sentence to pretense. It was a voice that created moments so brilliant with light that none could endure the full-length feature and be left unchanged. And it was a voice that revealed in that nuclear flash just what and who the listener is, and was...an insight like the flash of lightening that fractures the night’s darkness, revealing the extent of the storm's damage.

The voice was one that had an almost timeless quality in its tone, not of melancholy so much as of the remembrance of a childhood past with its pleasant memories of long days without care , merging both time and place into a cohesive whole.

Immediately the lyrics of an old Eagles tune occurred to him:

“Just lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair fall all around me
Offer up your best defense, but this is the end,
This is the end of the innocence
.”

And he knew that innocence had been lost, like the voice, in the layers of things urgent, things real, things necessary.

Yes, he remembered that he had come so far, so fast, and where had the years gone, but then doesn’t everyone wonder? He reflected on the fact that in each of our lives there is that same “small town voice” that was so familiar for so many years. Where had those years gone, he pondered.

Leaving the room dark so as to continue the mood, he sat quietly, replaying the recording of The Voice again and again, seeing in his mind’s eye the very picture of the caller and wishing for more.

But there was no more…only the repetitive playing of the answering machine into the hollow darkness of the room, asking the same simple question each time it played. That voice was somewhere else now, and he knew it was irretrievable. Could he have held it? No, that is the way with voices.

This was a voice from the past, a voice of long ago...it was silent now. But it was not forgotten. For as honey is sweet and smooth to the taste, so the voice was soothing to the soul, and his toil seemed lighter. As he played it one last time he thought, “It’s the voice of unequivocal love that made it so special,” and he knew its words would be etched in his memory forever.

He smiled as he returned to the present time, refreshed as only such a voice can do. The question kept resounding in his mind, and he knew the answer he’d reply. It was, of course, “Yes!”

In its gracious southern drawl, unhurried as was the whole of its life, the voice asked simply, “Will you be home for Thanksgiving, son?"

It was the voice of my mother, c. 1988...a plea from heaven.

Happy Thanksgiving

Bud Hearn
November 18, 2008

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