The voice calls to each person. It can be in different dialects. It can be in different tones. It can even be a silent voice that speaks not in whispers but in blinks or in stillnesses. Some believe it comes from the different places but it is the same. Mostly the voice becomes stamped onto something like ink on paper; just waiting to imprint like metal slugs living inside a typewriter.

Today, the air was hot and fragrant but Caroline didn’t mind. She simmered along with the pavement, swaying her hips a bit more as she listened to Van Morrison on her MP3 player. The only complaint Caroline was occupied with was the strange cloudiness that happened to her sinuses when the weather was warm, being unlike those who get it at the regular winter season. She caught a sneeze the way people catch a cold. Her nose tickled incessantly but she was determined not to give in to its constant need for attention.

A man dressed in a black suit barked into his cellphone, barely scraping by Caroline as he passed her. The voice was waiting patiently for him, but he was not listening just now. Up ahead stood Joanna, dabbing at her upper lip with her wrists. When she noticed Caroline, she smiled and dramatically fanned her hand over her face, referencing the heat. Caroline took out her earbuds and placed her music inside her back jeans pocket.

“Sorry sorry!” Caroline called.

“Late again? I’m so surprised,” Joanna mocked.

“I’m not late! I’m just not early,” Caroline argued, even though she was just apologizing to her friend for that very thing. Joanna smiled, knowing how to resolve the bustling habits of her friend. Certain buttons were naturally pushed between the two, but somehow when pushed by a friend of sixteen years, it feels more like tickling the button down rather than pushing it.

“Uhg! It’s so hot! Can’t we just skip this thing and go straight for the air conditioning at Carl’s?” Joanna said.

“Let’s peek in at least,” Caroline answered.

“Uhg!” Joanna repeated.

The workshop Caroline had asked Joanna to attend with her was named “The Grass isn’t Always Greener“ about how to not sacrifice your desire for change at the cost of your commitment to something else. Since it only cost twenty dollars with the internet coupon and was mostly a great excuse to have beers afterwards, there wasn’t much convincing needed. But privately, Caroline had another alternative. She was eager for someone to convince her to stick in there, to stay with it and put in another few years of medial work at the office and certainly the promotion at the end of it would be worth while.

The friends eased their head around the corner to the conference room where the workshop was reserved. The speaker had a chopped and feathered haircut that was doused in thick bleached highlights. She wore a tan power suit and black pumps. But it was her pacing across the front of the room that made her look positively passionate about duty. She resembled a tiger in a cage more than a motivational teacher. Caroline wasn’t sure what she was expecting but this wasn’t it. It was like opening the cabinet door and seeing sweaters instead of crackers.

The tiger cleared her throat, indicating that she was about to start when the voice chimed in. It said, “Squeek!” and both Caroline and Joanna turned their heads toward it. The squeaking came from the top styrofoam cup being removed from the single tower sitting on the refreshment table. Next to the coffee lay a plate full of yellow pastries filled with little puddles of deep red strawberry jelly. Not being the sort of women to pass up a pastry, they mutually agreed to give the tiger a shot.

The tiger talked for forty minutes of the hour long workshop about how she had little patience for those who followed after their frivolities. Ten minutes were about of how she had helped countless others from throwing away their marriages and life savings. Fifteen minutes were spent bashing those who travel in search of something unexplainable. Another ten minutes on the ridiculousness on investing in something with an unforeseeable reward and a final five minutes about the sanity of sticking with what you know. Forty minutes total of listening to the tiger leaving only twenty minutes if time for questions and comments, both of which were directed toward the table full of paper surveys and short little pencils.

Stepping outside afterwards, as Joanna munched on another scammed pastry, muffling her words about how great those beers are sounding now and how she will never be dragged to another workshop again, Caroline let something else speak.

The voice had whipped around her with the fresh humid air, stirring and pulling her arms into goosebumps as if it were freezing. Caroline had been listening for it but she had been expecting it to talk to her like a parent. Instead it spoke to her like a newly made friend.

“I’m going back to school,” said Caroline’s voice.