Till Human Voices Wake Us: Till Human Voices Wake Us, #2

By C. S. Johnson

Sometimes the difference between reality and insanity is only a matter of absurdity. 

There is nothing Milo Bishop fears more than the thought that he is going insane. Having grown up hearing his Uncle Jay's stories about the strange mermaids, Milo never had a reason to believe they were actually true. 

But when a near-death experience gives Milo a vision of a mermaid calling to him for help, Milo is forced to test his uncle's claims. And when he winds up in Rasulka, the mermaid community deep under the southern California seas, the question of his uncle's sanity is the least of Milo's concerns. 

For in the heart of Rasulka, a growing whirlpool in the ocean-sky and the terrarium's changing climate -- along with a discarded prophecy that says the end will come when humans appear -- all suggest time is of the essence. Along with his uncle, his best friend, Moss, and Eluia, a young mermaid, Milo has only hours to sort through his doubts and insecurities, discover the truth, and overcome unimaginable terrors if he is going to find his way home -- before Rasulka, and everyone in it, is lost forever. 

Fans of Dune, Empire of Lies, Fahrenheit 451, and Till We Have Faces will enjoy this science fantasy thriller with a dark psychological twist from author C. S. Johnson. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: C. S. Johnson
• Release date: Jul 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9781948464208

C. S. Johnson

If you've enjoyed this book, please consider leaving me a tip on Ko-Fi!  https://www.ko-fi.com/writercsjohnson Every little bit helps fuel my book business!  If you would like to keep up with me and my work, please check out my Substack! https://www.substack.com/@writercsjohnson THANK YOU AGAIN FOR READING THIS BOOK! Authors like myself are deeply indebted to the people who leave reviews. Not only does it help other people find our work, but I can say with absolute certainty that there have been days when a new review popped up and kept me from quitting. If you could do me a favor and leave a review for this book, I would be very grateful. All the best,  CJ  C. S. JOHNSON

Book preview

For Sam. Science and faith, saint and sinner, reason and imagination, grace and truth, and you and me—I have always seen God’s sense of humor in the opposing pairs and the combating ideas this world has to offer. You have proven to be a gatekeeper to a Mariana Trench in my own walk of faith, and I’m grateful to discover the hidden beauty that lies in the darkness between us.

This is also for my beloved readers:

Brynn S., Beth C., Malissa P., Cathy H., Kara G., Gay D., Terri R., Laura P., Krissy F., Darla C., Lorel K., Christine C., Paul H., Tina M., Marlene R., Pat C., and Jennifer S. Thank you for all your encouragement in helping me to get this book done. Each of you has been a blessing to me, and I know this is such a small way to repay you for all the good you’ve done for me.

To Get Awakening (A Special Christmas Episode of The Starlight Chronicles) as a bonus for picking up this book, click Here

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Or Download It At:

https://www.csjohnson.me/awakening

If you’ve enjoyed this book, or you’d like a little more backstory, please consider reading the prequel novella featuring Milo’s uncle, Jay, and his strange adventures that take place before this novel.

Get Across the Floors of Silent Seas today!

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Dear Reader,

Those of you who are more attuned to my state of mind know there are certain things you can expect from my work, and if you are among my most hardcore fans, you are likely well aware that it is unusual for me to place the author’s note at the beginning of my books.

But the good news is, of course, that there is good reason for it this time.

Throughout my writing career, I have tried to keep certain darker elements of my stories on the more ambiguous and vague end of things so you can adjust your own imagining into the blanks, the old Speak/Strike/Redress principle I learned so well in high school. This includes areas revolving around topics such as cursing, sex, drugs, and violence. This book is a first in that I will be more blatant about some of these issues, and once more, I believe there is good reason for it.

The theme of this book—English teachers rejoice!—centers on the question of what it means to be human. There are things about humanity, in discussing that question, we are unable to directly overlook, such as truth, sin, art, choices, sex, judgment, and damnation.

Because of this, this book is among the few of my books that are more appropriate for specifically older teenagers and up—a PG-14 rating, instead of a PG or PG-13 one. There is more expletive language, sexual references, and unappealing descriptions than what you would normally find in my other work.

There is no doubting or hiding the darkness this world has to offer, but there is nothing virtuous about maintaining innocence when innocence is uncalled for. Children are expected to potty train, and there is nothing one would herald as grand or exemplary for an adult who, even though capable of using the toilet, chooses to remain in soiled diapers. 

I never wanted to write a book where my kids would look at me with odd questions in their eyes (or at least, no more odd than usual). As a parent, there are definitely some conversations you never want to have with your kids. I do believe this book, controversial as it might be for me to write or perhaps even for you to read, will allow my conscience to remain intact—although I will be sure to hide this book on the back of my bookshelf, just to buy myself some extra time. 

Trust in God but lock your car, right?

Until We Meet Again,

C. S. Johnson

"For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains /

You give me are more precious than all other gains."

C. S. Lewis, As the Ruin Falls

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.

T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Till Human

Voices

Wake Us

A SCIENCE FANTASY NOVEL

֎ ֎ ֎ ֎

C. S. Johnson

Prologue

֎ ֎ ֎ ֎

MY NAME IS MILO BISHOP, and I am not insane.

Or at least, that’s what my doctors tell me—all the different ones I get to see throughout the week, all the ones riding on the medical merry-go-round in and out of my rehab room.

It really is like a merry-go-round, too, with their overly-repetitive and supposedly upbeat theme song:

"You’re not insane /

You’ve had a bad time /

You need help with your pain, /

Everything is going to be fine / 

That’s why you came here, /

No need to feel any shame /  

There’s nothing you need to fear /

We promise, you’re not insane."

If I could write a catchier tune to go along with it, I’d be a millionaire.

Of course, there’s some variation to the words along with their different faces, but it’s always mostly the same, like a parade of catcalling demons coming out of hell, or a conga line of Nazis calling you to join them on the right side of history without giving a damn about the fact that they’re already on the wrong side of reality.

Ha. Nazis. That’s hilarious.

Well, not hilarious. Maybe I mean more hopeful—but that sounds bad, and it’s not what I mean, either.

I am not insane, but it is strange to think that Nazis can give me hope—the fact that they are wrong and so obviously, terribly wrong means something, and something profound.

Their evil means there is good, and that good means there is something right—something right beyond what any one person says it is. And that means there is such a thing as reality after all, and truth is not as relative as people think it is.

And that, I have to remind myself, means there is such a thing as meaning, and there is nothing wrong or insane about believing it.

There is nothing insane about believing that.

However, there is everything insane about having to live through what I’ve lived through to believe it.

That’s why I only halfway believe the doctors when they tell me I am not insane. It’s that they never tell me I am sane that makes me cautious and suspicious, as on edge as my mother is every time someone mentions seeing a killer whale.

They are either lying to me with their doctor doublespeak, or I am lying so well when I talk to them that they’ve been fooled into believing I am not insane.

It’s true I’m much more believable-looking when I talk with them now than I was first brought here. Before, I’d yell and scream at everyone, railing how much I hated their sympathetic patronizing.

Now, I only nod blandly, even if I still hate it.

Sometimes if I am feeling a little snarky I will ask the doctors what I should feel shame for, since I apparently did nothing wrong, but that is the extent of my dissent.

After the first few weeks, I figured out people don’t want you to tell the truth; they want you to tell them what they want to hear. And they want to hear you say it with enough conviction that they no longer feel responsible for your behavior.

Damn them. Damn them all.

They spend at least a third of their lives trying to get people like me back to normal. It might’ve been six months since I’d officially dropped out of college, but even with my mostly-finished psychology degree, I knew they weren’t normal at all. How is a life normal if you’re trying to help other people get back to normal?

That’s not normal, no matter what they say.

It’s almost time for my medication. I’m surprised they’re not here yet, coming with the little brown bottle, handing out pills like they were passing out candy at Halloween. Maybe they are hoping I am asleep. I know they don’t like me here.  

If I am really desperate to see them, I could call them. I have a call button laced around my neck like I’m some half-crippled old person, and I’m tempted to push it just so I can stay in my chair.

I like my chair. I like my desk. I like making the staff here at the Southern California Memorial Mental Health Rehabilitation Center in San Diego work. I like making them earn every penny of the money my condition allows them to pull from the state’s mental health slush fund.

But at some point, checking into a psych ward should be less like a vacation where they want you to be comfortable and more like a hospital where they want you to be alive.

It’s not like I want them to come and bother me either. If there’s one state that barely lets you pee on your own even if you’re not insane, it’s California.

The Pee Guy—a group of interchangeable, faceless CNAs I’d deemed The Pee Guy, more out of apathy than contempt—had only left me about an hour ago. The Checklist Lady would be coming in a few more hours to introduce me to my diet requirements, based on my urine samples; I bet anything she’d have a new list for me today.

If I wasn’t insane before they came, I would be when they finished with me.

So no, I don’t want anyone to come and bother me, and I don’t want them to see me writing this.

When I first came here, weeks after everything happened, the main psychiatrist, after pumping me full of something stronger than marijuana and lighter than LSD, gave me this notebook and told me to write down the things I knew to be true.

After I told her what was true, she told me to write down only the things that were really real. When I explained to her that all of what I’d told her was real, and I knew it was real because I experienced it, her limpid eyes, as perfectly blue as the SoCal oceanfront, swelled with fake sympathetic tears and she doubled the prescription amount.

She then told me it was okay to tell my truth, about what happened so I could heal, and then we’d sort it out so I could move on.

The notebook was supposed to be my way of making sense of my experiences in a way that she could feel like she’d done her job.

So when I got back to my room, I rightfully chucked the notebook across the room.

As the days passed, I threatened all the nursemaids who tried to pick it up, and eventually I almost forgot about the notebook entirely.

When I did remember it, I thought about how much work it would take to write stuff, and how much I didn’t really want to do it.

And truthfully, I don’t actually like writing all this down.

Some people revel in their deficiencies, their labels; other people can’t escape them.

I don’t even know what mine are, which means escaping them is just more difficult.

My name is Milo Bishop, and I am not insane.

That’s really all I could think of for a long time: my name, and my status as a patient—the things that kept me bound to my immediate, provable reality.

But here’s what I have discovered about reality: reality is insane.

Life is insane. I grew up thinking we were just supposed to be these bodies of coded flesh, our minds radiating with electrons that fire around making thoughts, and that makes the meat jackets we walk in somewhat ... what?

Valuable?

Distinct?

Important?

Even after all this time, I have no clue how to describe it. Not in a way that doesn’t garner another round of sympathetic or judgmental glances.

But I think I should.

Shouldn’t I?

No, I should. I really should.

I’ve been here at the rehab center for six long months, and even before that, the questions I’d seemed to be asking nearly all my life had been pestering me to find the answer.

What was the point of my life, does it have any meaning, and why should I care?

After everything that’s happened, I owe it to others, my Uncle Jay especially, to sort myself out and get on with my life.  

Ugh.

Every time I think of my uncle, I instantly regret it—partially because it’s him, but more so because it’s never just him.

She has to come, too—the other voice in my head, the one my psychologist tells me is my own imagination.

Her voice is crystalline clear, a song rising above the noise, and it tells me I am real, a real miracle, and my life is meaningful and because of that, I mean something to others—even others who have never met me.

It’s her voice, and I hate her as much as I ache for her, like I ache for the sea. 

It is an asinine, insane, divine call to my heart, one I’ve always had and one I never knew could be so powerful, and one I can only resist because I likely still have some of the softer meds in my system.

Guilt swiftly follows my momentary joy, and before the moment is over, I’m at war with reality again.

She is real. She has to be real.

It wouldn’t be so bad if reality was something I could prove by its own standards. If reality was what I experienced, something outside of me, how could I be outside of myself and still experience it? How could I ever be someone else, and see my life outside myself?

There were other harder questions to face, too. I mean, what if time is an illusion? What if memories are illusions? How do I know that I am not living in the Matrix or that I am not just imagining life like this? What if someone or something insane is writing me into life, telling a story about me, and I have no choice but to do what it says I will?

Okay. Maybe that’s too crazy.

Right?

But am I real, only because I think it so? Descartes said something like that, but for all I could know he was a figment of my professors’ imaginations, or maybe he was really a woman using a pen name, like Shakespeare. And maybe my college professors might have been mixed up. Or maybe I was getting the lectures mixed up.

Either way, my mother’s voice interrupts my thoughts, and I struggle, since it is the only voice that I feel I am able to trust—even if her tone is brisk and she is telling me to grow up and grow a pair while I’m at it.

Then my psychiatrist’s face pops up inside my mind again, just to say hello, and oh also, I have maternal issues.

I’m eager to fight back, on some level, especially with this point.

Everyone tells you to grow up, but no one tells you how you will grow up. Or when. No one tells you when you grow up, exactly, only that you should be grown up at some fixed point in time, or that you should grow up since you are such-and-such-this age for such-and-such these reasons. In my life, as short as it has been for these now-almost-twenty-four years, I’ve found time to be both misleading and domineering in these matters.

It’s almost time for my meds. I should stop writing.

What does it really matter if I do this, anyway? I didn’t think I’d really want to write any of this all down, not seriously.

Not until last month.

Last month, Laura came to visit me. It was the first time she’d come to see me here since my mother agreed to have me committed to the mind spa after I dropped out of college.

Laura, my sweet, doting, foolishly optimistic Laura. I don’t know why she loves me, but I do know that I don’t deserve it.

I first met Laura at college, two weeks into one of my sophomore classes. She’d been delayed in transferring to San Diego from a college in Montana, which was foreign enough for me to consider her half-Canadian by default.

The day I met her, she was sitting in my usual seat, as though she’d been delivered by some higher power and given to me as a gift. She was sitting so straight in her chair, full of first-day jitters, but quietly determined and dignified. As I approached her, I expected a rival for my chair, not a conqueror for my heart.

She smiled up at me with those full lips, and I settled for stealing the chair next to her. The guy who’d been sitting there gave me a dirty look, but I cracked my knuckles and sent a deluge of silent threats to keep him away. As he shuffled his way to the back of the class, I introduced myself to Laura and immediately began suggesting we get together so I could help her catch up on the previous class discussions. Then after some skillful, professor-bribing maneuvers, I became her partner for a group project. It was an easy transition from first-day meet-cutes to classwork study-buddies to full-on, real-world dating status, and we’d been dating ever since.  

I was crazy about her.

I’d also been about to break up with her before everything happened.

And then she came to see me last month, here at the rehab center. She came in, her eyes bloated and puffy with sleepiness but full of gentleness and sincerity as she looked at me. She talked as though no time at all had passed since Moss’s yacht party, and she even brought me a gift—a pineapple, which I merely set aside on my night table after she gave me a gracious smile.

I gave her a grin in return, surprisingly, and as soon as I realized she’d made me happy, I frowned.

Honestly, I don’t know if I should have kissed her for her benevolence or scorned her for her insensitivity.

Either way, I paid her loveliness back as I always did, with garbage behavior.

How’s Allie? I asked. No hellos, no pleasant observations about the weather, no small talk. Just an abrupt question that was purposefully designed to make Laura feel uncomfortable.

If that was my goal, I did not succeed.

Perhaps it was for the best I didn’t.

She’s good, Laura replied easily. She sat down in the small chair by the desk and folded her hands together.