[Critique Group 1] Marcia's September submission

[Marcia Wick]

Hearing voices

Marcia J. Wick, The Write Sisters

September 2019

Word Count:  321

 

At 5:30 a.m., my alarm speaks, "Feed the dog." My mobile phone then
announces, "The high temperature for the day will be in the 80s." Siri, the
lady trapped inside my smart phone, speed reads my email and internet
searches effortlessly. 

 

It's not that I'm losing my mind, hearing voices when I'm home alone. I
depend upon audible technology to compensate for my progressive loss of
vision. As a person who is blind in the 21st century, I am grateful for
audible technology. It's as if I'm never alone. 

 

Michael lives in my laptop. He speaks through my screen reader. He doesn't
judge my writing; he reads to me without intonation or emotion. When I
dictate text messages, I have programmed a delightful English gentleman to
read them back to me. Somehow, my words seem more clever and whimsical when
echoed in his lilting accent. My smarter-than-me phone, on the other hand,
sometimes makes me feel inept. 

 

"I'm sorry, you're daughter isn't in your contact list," Siri claims. 

 

"She is, too," I retort. Sometimes, I call Siri the "B" word when she pisses
me off like that.

 

My talking book player also reads aloud to me. I can adjust the tone of the
narrator's voice up or sound so that a man sounds like a woman; I can adjust
the speed so that a woman sounds like a chipmunk. Either way, I can insure
that they stop reading aloud in 15 or 30 minutes according to the time I set
on the audible sleep button. 

 

It used to be that only human voices from the television or radio filled the
air in my home. Now I rely on talking microwaves and coffee makers, talking
Calculators, thermometers, and clocks.

Voices via YouTube, podcasts, webinars, Netflix, mp3 files, eBooks, and
conference calls add to the cacophony.

 

"OK, Google," I command. Turn it off! Let me remember the beautiful sound of
peace and quiet.

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