Mouthpiece

I never had a voice. I didn’t think I was born with one. I just, you know, never talked. To me, a voice was not a part of my existence. Yes—I did notice everyone else using theirs, but I was different. I knew that right away. I wouldn’t talk, because nothing would come out. I have to be honest; I didn’t always like being different in this way, but really, what could I do about it? It was my reality, one that I had to face and live with.
There were times when people would actually talk to me, ask me questions, like they thought I might actually have the ability to speak just like them. The audacity! I remember my mouth starting to open, like it believed something would happen, but of course, nothing ever did. The person would leave me alone after that. Now they knew the truth. But it left me humiliated. I was doing just fine before they came up to me, coping with my lack of a voice just fine. But when that happened, it reminded me that there was something wrong with me. That it wasn’t really okay.
My name is Ellis. Growing up, I never thought that was significant. It was just two syllables put together to compose a label. My parents liked the sound of it. Too bad I could never say it. I never heard what my name sounded like on my own tongue. As I grew older, voices began to taunt me. Voices without substance attached to them. They would tell me there was something seriously wrong with me and I could never be loved on account of my absent voice. They told me that people felt sorry for me but that’s all they thought of me. They told me I should never have been born. It was horrifying. First I had learned to accept who I was, now I was ashamed of it. Well, it wasn’t hard to hide my feelings, being that I didn’t have a voice. I willed my face and my actions to disguise them as well. I got really good at that.
By the time I was an adult, I was a hopeless case. I trudged through life with no purpose, no passion, no love. I was virtually dead. I questioned why I had to be born, and I began to resent whoever had originally come up with that idea, and whichever genius thought it would be brilliant to make me without a voice. I lived in an isolated world of encroaching darkness. I could hardly even see the people around me anymore. It didn’t matter—they never noticed me now.
One day I lay on my bedroom floor and I sobbed. That’s right—I was finally letting it all out. This was my life, and I was not okay with it. So I sobbed. What else could I do? I wasn’t expecting an answer.
But then it came. Like an ocean wave, it came and crashed over me.
Not really an answer, just a name. My name. “Ellis!” The voice called. It had been so long since I had heard my name spoken, it made me weep harder. Someone had noticed me? Not only that, but I had never heard such a voice before. Beautiful, passionate, deep, it resonated within my heart, breathed life into the dead caverns. It seemed to call to me in desperation, in desire even. No one, no one had ever desired me! I could never have anticipated what came next.
“Ellis, I made you.”
At this bold claim, my heart constricted. Rage pushed itself through until I couldn’t contain it anymore.
“WHY?” I screamed. All my questions formed this one word.
At first it didn’t register to me that I had spoken. I was too overcome in my fury towards this creator who decided not to give me a voice. But then, I began to breathe. Fast, so that I was acutely aware of every inhale and exhale. And I realized that a word had come out of my mouth.
That’s when my world tipped on its axis.
My creator spoke again. “You ask why. Why? Because you believed the lies, my son. I gave you a voice!”
I was shaking now, but my rage was dying down. Could it be? I began to feel something like elation. Joy. I wanted to hear more.
“You are Ellis! Your name has always meant ‘mouthpiece of God!’ So speak!”
“CREATOR! I LOVE YOU!” My first words of love. Oh, how beautiful, the feeling of them coming up through my throat and escaping through my mouth. All I could do was laugh.
My name is Ellis. I walk in the light. I know my God. I know my Creator. They are one and the same, and He made me to be his mouthpiece. You might hear me sometime, so keep your ears open.