I woke up feeling heavy in my bones. There was a kind of greater gravity that bore down hard on my joints, and I struggled to raise my head. When I finally managed to, subsequently getting out of bed, the feeling slowly faded. It was strange, not like the usual reluctance to waking. Like a foreign force in my body, holding me down. There was also a humming in my skull that didn’t fade with the pressure. Yesterday felt hazy, almost impossible to recall, but I knew that these weren’t the things my body was supposed to do. Today was going to be different.

The humming began to soundtrack my day the more I got used to it. While I was getting dressed, another layer of humming commenced over it, one that slowly faded in and then articulated itself even more gradually. Finally, the words were decipherable, speaking unapologetically over my thoughts:

“SMILE. SMILE. SMILE. SMILE. SMILE. SMILE…”

I paused for a few minutes when the words started, taking all the time I would have needed to be horrified. I felt so violated, so annoyed. At some point, I conceded that I was still dreaming and continued to get ready, lest I make myself late for work. I tried to block it out as I finished my routine. I looked in the mirror to fix my tie and realized that, despite my efforts, I had been smirking the whole time.

I hoped to be amused whenever I actually did wake up.

I left the apartment and walked to the coffee shop, just like I do every morning before work. All the way there, there was so much cross chatter in between my ears. The obnoxious beep of my alarm was looping over and over again under the unintelligible rambling of that voice from earlier. I heard the sounds of the street dropping in and out. Children, cars, dogs, all of these cutting out at times, like there was a faulty connection. I heard static.

I heard static in my own fucking head.

What was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to run to a shrink and explain that I woke up feeling like hardware? For one, I was still weakly convincing myself of the chance that this could be some ridiculously lucid dream. All of it. The voice, the static, the low whirring noises in my skull, all products of my imagination.

I could also be nuts. Absolutely crazy, no question about it.

Or maybe there was really someone else in my head.

Half way to the coffee shop, I felt a stinging deep in the side of my neck. Unconsciously, I kept smacking at the area, hoping to come away with a smashed bug in my hand or something just as trivial, but there was nothing there.

Waiting in line was the worst. The cross chatter had cleared up within a matter of seconds once I entered the shop. Yet every time the line had nudged forward slightly, the closer I came to the counter, the louder I heard:

“SATISFACTION. HAPPINESS. SATISFACTION. HAPPINESS. SATISFACTION. HAPPINESS…”

By the time I had reached the counter, the voice in my head was practically shouting over the cashier’s. I watched her lips move miserably, furious that I couldn’t control what I was hearing. Her lips stopped moving, and she looked at me vacuously. The more I tried to figure out what was going on under the voice, the more I strained to hear the sounds of the shop, the cashier’s concern, the more intense the stinging in my neck became. Just as the girl behind the counter was calling over another one of her co-workers, it had finally become unbearable.

First, I screamed. It was all I could think to do to block out the voice, and it worked. There was such a head rush, and I had somewhat lost my bearings. Almost as a reflex, my hand rushed for my neck. When I had finally stopped screaming and opened my eyes, there was a shrill ringing in my ears that was slowly fading, only to be replaced with the stiff silence of a gaggle of terrified people. I looked down at my hand. It was a bloodied mess that clenched tightly around a small silicon chip attached to a severed wire.

There was blood all over my shirt.

I looked around to pale faces and spotless expressions. Everyone seemed to be waiting for me to do something, like I was holding them hostage with my behavior. I turned to the appalled cashier who then muttered something that sounded like “off the grid.” It was so hard to tell. I thought I had an hour before I was deaf for good.

Her hand moved under the counter, but she kept her shaky eyes on me. If I had to guess, she was going for the silent alarm. Two or three more customers moved to dial 911. The humming had finally stopped, and my hearing had returned almost fully. I was still struggling to adjust to the unhindered sounds of the world inside this coffee shop.

I pocketed the chip and quickly made for the bathroom, only to find that I was practically covered in blood from a wound I still couldn’t feel. I looked like a madman. There was a bright red mess all over my shirt and tie, my face, and even a little bit on my glasses. The right side of my neck had a huge, deep gash, shaped crudely like a raindrop.

I was certainly not dreaming.

The apex of gash was right behind my ear. I felt around it. I felt something a bit sharp and metallic inside it. I strained to see it in the mirror. It looked like a frayed mess of copper with a bit of rubber around it. Like a wire.

A wire.

What the fuck was going on?

I started to hear sirens. Sirens are usually for the guy covered in blood.

I charged the door, tore through the shop and out the back door. I couldn’t help a feeling of delight when I could hear startled yelps behind me, but only because I could actually hear them. I had to get out of these clothes. I had to hide. I had to find some place to go. Did that thing mean that they know where I live?

I don’t think I can go back there now.