"Meditation," Toby sighed, "alright, let's get started." He leaned back on the bench. "Tell me what you do."
"Ok, close your eyes and relax. This is how I learned," she said tilting her head up. "Think about this park. The grass is a brilliant green and soft under your feet. Trees surround the area you're sitting in. You can see several paths leading into the surrounding trees. The water in the pond is calm, looking like glass." Pausing, she glanced around the park, seeing the additional trees she mentioned. "What do you hear?" she smiled slightly.
"Voices, hundreds of voices," Toby stayed focused as much as he could.
"Pick one voice, only one that you can hear. Tell me about it."
"It's a man talking about something. I can't tell what he's saying."
"Focus on making his voice quieter," she said quietly. "Focus on that voice only until you can't hear it."
After a few moments, Toby sighed deeply. He focused on the voice and his breathing. The voice of the man was slowly getting quieter, getting down to a whisper. Finally, disappearing.
Opening his eyes he saw his surroundings had changed slightly. There were more trees and new paths in the park.
"Well, that was interesting," he said under his breath. "This is gonna take a while."
"It's a start, I'm sure it will get easier," Rachel reassured him.
"Sure hope so," Toby closed his eyes drawing a deep breath. Toby found a new voice to focus on. It whispered about strawberries. She was upset, going on about not having strawberries and why wasn't her Jell-O not strawberry flavored? This was an easy voice for him to focus on. As he focused on her voice he continued to push it farther away from him until her voice was no longer heard.
"Rachel," Oz's voice was loud and caused Toby to lose focus. Opening his eyes he anticipated seeing Oz standing near him. To his surprise Oz stood by Rachel with his hand on her shoulder. "Rachel, time's up." He watched as they both faded.
Toby sat confused. He couldn't understand why he had all these other voices in his head but couldn't grasp the voices of his friends for long. He had heard them now and then, but never for more than a few seconds at a time. This time he could hear Oz and see him, but it hardly lasted before the pair disappeared.
Looking around the park he searched for a familiar face or voice. When none were found he went back to focusing one voice at a time.
Rachel opened her eyes to the bright room. Toby lay looking peaceful on the bed.
"Well?" Oz stared at here waiting impatiently for an answer. "Could you hear him?"
"What time is it?" Rachel sat confused. "That was a lot longer than ten minutes, Oz."
"What? No it was only ten minutes," he said pointing to the clock on the wall. "Come on, what's up with Toby?"
"That felt a lot longer than 10 minutes," she said in disbelief. "And, yes, I could hear him." Pausing, she stood up to stretch. "That felt more like a few hours." She tried to shake off the unsure feeling she had.
"Well?" Oz asked again moving to the foot of the bed. "What happened?"
"He seems to be overloaded with everyone's thoughts. At least that's what I'm guessing. It's kinda like a dream state, but not. I don't know how to explain it." Rachel felt overloaded herself. "We were able to get him to push out one voice. I'm hoping he's still working on that."
"One voice?" Oz questioned. "That's it? How many were there?"
"I don't know, hundreds." She walked toward the window. The sun was hiding behind a few clouds making it feel later in the day than it was.
"Hundreds?" he exclaimed. How could that be? Toby was always able to block things out.
They stood quietly in the room for a few minutes. Oz looking at Toby trying to come up with some way of understanding what was going on, and Rachel staring out the window.
"Ok," Rachel said. "I need to go back." She walked back to the chair next to Toby's bed. "I need to help him figure this out. This is just not right. I know there must be some reason for all this." She placed her hand atop of Toby's once again.