What Is the Natural Sound of Your Voice?

by SulagnaMisra

What’s your favorite light?
1. Fragmented sunlight filtered through the leaves of trees.
2. The flicker of your nightlight as you read one… more… page.
3. Sunshine filling a room.
4. The pallor of the moon silvering up the world.
5. The high beams of incoming visitors.
6. The sudden brightening of a screen.

Who do you see in your dreams? (Choose all that apply, add them together and find the average.)
1. You speak comfortably with people you’ve seen in books, movies, magazines, but never in real life. Then someone who you do know in real life shows up and you stutter.
2. You’re driving — a car, a plane, it doesn’t matter, but you’re moving forward, trying to catch that horizon.
3. You sit quietly with a friend or relative you haven’t seen in a while. You discuss a book you read recently, or that movie everyone’s talking about.
4. Grab the bag, there’s no time! Jump on the train, you must escape quickly. Hide from them, you know too mu — hey, it’s morning.
5. You pull off your fingers and stick them on your feet. Then you turn into a circle.
6. You walk through a giant grey house. You finally find a person. No, it’s a mirror. You look at it and smile. No, your teeth fall out. You turn around and face your betrayer.

What’s your revenge?
1. You go about your day when suddenly you think of them. You wonder how they are, but soon get distracted by your life.
2. Your skin prickles at reference to them, and you curse their name under your breath.
3. You’re on an adventure. You go far and wide, your body full of adrenaline, your mind opening like a book. Then a particularly wonderful moment is interrupted by thoughts of them. “Ugh, whatever,” you say, a couple times, and it sticks.
4. You don’t take revenge, but wait until karma delivers them the hardships they’ve earned.
5. Complaining about them very loudly and in strongly worded letters to editors, advice columnists, your friends, and others, who condemn him each for you.
6. You know the devil’s in the tiny nuisances: of the books they’ll never get back, the newsletters they never signed up for, the lack of your incredible company.

How do you get things done?
1. Lists. Pro/con, to-do’s, never-ending notebooks.
2. First, we’ll need two things and also that thing. But I’m just going to sit here and wait until the right moment to act.
3. Do one thing. Then do the next thing. Then do that thing. Then do…
4. Hey, you do this, and you do this, and you do this, and I’ll work on names. We’ll convene next week.
5. Hope and belief and ignoring it until the last minute.
6. Getting things done? More like getting things…ugh, I don’t have a pun here.

What texture calms you down?
1. Fluff. Soft. Cuddly. You know the drill.
2. Embossed books. Damask wallpaper. Anything that whispers and grumbles when I touch it.
3. A buttery shine to rub your cheek against.
4. A hand on your shoulder.
5. Soft cloth warmed by your body heat.
6. Flavorful vittles.

What’s the last thing you wrote down?
1. Your pen was swift yet careless, doodling while you listened carefully, your paper covered in spirals and hearts and people.
2. Randomly: budgets, timelines, compromises. What does your future hold? It must be in the measurements.
3. Your name, over and over again, reassuring yourself of your power.
4. Each of your ideas is a pearl, and must be hoarded as such.
5. A bracing, thrilling show of assertiveness.
6. A sweaty, messy demonstration of affection.

Mostly 1’s: The rattle of pebbles in your purse.
Mostly 2’s: Rainfall after dark, stalwart and stubborn and full of grace.
Mostly 3’s: The shoom of snow as your foot disappears into it.
Mostly 4’s: The whoosh of a car, train, or other automobiles hurtling past you.
Mostly 5’s: The crunch of tires on gravel.
Mostly 6’s: The sizzle of oil in a frying pan.

Previously: What’s the Color of Your Existential Abyss?

Sulagna Misra is writer living on the Internet who likes to stare into space. You can follow her here or here.