117 — The Day the Whispers Began

The day the whispers began was the last day of Ramadan. Many--almost two billion people--believed Gabriel was bestowing new revelations. Only those who had fasted heard, but the whispers were unintelligible, felt to be some exotic dialect, long extinct.

Then, Catholics heard them, but only pregnant women. Again, it was felt to be the angel, Gabriel, because of his message so long ago to the blessed mother. Again, the whispers were unintelligible

The Jews were next, but only their first-born children. Again, unintelligible.

Soon all religions had those who heard them. Even the atheists began hearing them, which unsurprising lowered the number of the world's atheists. Yet, the Pope, Imams, rabbis, and any official church representatives were deaf to them.

Only silence was laid down when recordings were attempted. A consortium of linguistic scholars was unable to put down in writing what was heard by each faction.

The whispers, when mimicked by talented speakers into voiced utterances, remained gibberish.

Whispers are as much an exclusively human thing as music, literature, poetry, art, and religion. Yet, unlike those, which augment the human to new heights of fulfillment, a whisper is a degradation, a devaluation--not of what is being said, but of the one saying it. Whispered just so, the speaker's message is an unheard gender, age, accent, or any other identifiable mien. It is stripped down of all speaker attributes except for one:

Urgency.

Whispers are delivered furtively. In secret. And a proper secret, always whispered, also is always urgent. Something meant for just one person to know.

Urgently.

Those of faith heard the urgency but couldn't listen to the combined messages as one. Listening required the ear of gestalt to glean the message of an aggregate hearing--perception--flowing together from the different whispers.

Thus, the only way the whispers--this urgency, this message--could be properly delivered to the faithful was when they reconciled their individual disparate beliefs with all other beliefs vying for the One True Religion--and truly began listening.

Thus, the urgency went unanswered. It was the message in a bottle, and it was floating away. Most were terrified that they would never learn what the urgency was; some, however, were more terrified that they would, soon.

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THIS SUBMISSION

For SciFriday, April 26 Day 117 of the Story-a-Day Challenge. Now well into triple digits!

366 WORDS

All pictures are AI-generated, but the message is not!

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