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This (very) short-story has been posted by its author, Gary Archambault, on the Kevin Coyne Group in February 2007.
THAT VOICE
The voice coming from the huge speakers was that of an old man, a very old man, two hundred years old at least. But it was also the voice of a small child, a small child who often found his hands turning into cement and his skin turning into paper.
"Who the hell is this? I asked.
My brother just looked at me. We understand nothing, said his gaze.
His couch and matching loveseat were flowery abominations. He was probably high when he bought them and thought them hilariously funny. Now, though, they just looked ghastly. Like some kind of pornographic version of nature.
Planted upon them, him on the couch, me on the loveseat, we kept listening to that voice. It sang about people locked up for having wrong thoughts, for having emotions that made them chew holes through walls. It sang of sunshine, and blue skies, and horror. My brother left the room suddenly, and I went to the albums and looked at the jacket of the one on the turntable.
Before my brother returned, I grabbed my coat and left. I had to get away from that voice. It was too real. It was like a mirror, and in that mirror I saw a garbage can with arms and legs.
As I rode the streetcar downtown, not knowing where I was heading, I kept hearing it. That voice. That old, young voice. I got off the streetcar at Yonge and Queen and found myself floating towards the record stores. I passed businessmen with Mohawks, and punk rockers in three-piece suits and thousand-dollar shoes. I had the strangest feeling that if I cut myself, it wouldn't be blood gushing from me but that voice … that voice.