A Voice and A Noise - By Ain Fatini

Written By: Ain Fatini

Category: Literary Fiction

Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026

Ain Fatini presents "A Voice and A Noise," a striking entry in the Creative Writing category of the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. This evocative narrative explores the complex dynamics between two friends, Selene and Addie, as they navigate the journey into adulthood. Through a lens of shared memories and evolving identities, Fatini delves into themes of friendship, self-discovery, and individuality.

About the Work

"A Voice and A Noise" captures the essence of growing up and the inevitable changes that accompany it. The narrative is woven with introspective dialogue and vivid imagery, painting a portrait of two women striving to understand themselves and each other. Fatini skillfully employs literary fiction to explore the tension between personal values and the bonds of friendship, creating a work rich in emotional depth and philosophical reflection.

A Voice and A Noise

Original Submission by Ain Fatini

Ain Fatini

fatini.fo@gmail.com

Summary

This book tells a story between two girls who are individually discovering their own values growing into adulthood while sharing the same memories as a kid. When values become stronger with individuality, each party sacrifices their character to remain relevant as a friend. The kind of problem Selene has is not something her best friend can possibly solve. A guide to be a friend is to just be who they already are for each other.

Chapter 1

Selene won’t find this bouquet of flowers attractive, she thinks to herself, loitering down from one aisle to another, hoping to find something that maybe could at least make her best friend think her effort is valuable. She never gets her anything, in their entire length of the friendship. Because to her, gifts are the least useful thing to show appreciation for someone.

Addie loves puncturing into her emotions when things go way too distant between them. She knows Selene needs someone to remind her that she needs people. Intimacy scares her and Addie loves telling her how important it is to remember what places she likes to go, and all the boring things a boyfriend does to her partner. But their friendship is a walking evidence that women need each other more than they need men.

But Selene thinks to herself it takes effort on her end to keep this friendship alive. Building a rose garden, and sharing a car are credentials to how seriously she’s taking their togetherness. Being married to Malcolm is even a greater reason for Addie to be interested in her best friend's life. Selene finally has romance and substances that would make her days more cheerful than she is as a person ‘Malcolm will bring texture into your life’, Addie once said to her. She’s not quite sure how to tell Addie the hard things she feels about her sometimes.

Maybe if you put your guard down and accept her the way she already is will lose the tension. Her husband reckoned about one fight she had with Addie, she insisted on paying their groceries when they were roommates. Sometimes I feel like she puts so much in this friendship and I feel obligated to repay it equally. And she never gives up too. I know we have been close for so long but doesn't she think adulthood can get in my way sometimes?

‘Honey, sometimes I feel like you don't know yourself better than Addie does. Do you remember the time you left your mom’s house to live with your aunt because you were afraid Addie would come look for you if she knew you’d lose your temper over a subject you didn’t score well?’ She knows you can't have too much alone time. It's separation anxiety because of your isolation tendencies.

She has a lot of disagreements in her head, I was doing something else that gave off something tangible output myself. I don’t treat my emotions like a child in need of supervision. Addie is the opposite of her, she has nuances that Selene thinks would be much more complicated for her to understand. Her life is simple, work, relationship and friends are all supposed to serve her life. Everything points back to her benefits no matter how hard she tries to comprehend a different trajectory.

Maybe our brains are physically different. And the physicality of our bodies are never identical—this very distinctness creates individuality. She remembers feeling adequately relevant with the minority of people who agreed with materialism. People around her seem to make life more complicated than they already are. We have a template as human beings, you grow up to make money– earning more means living more comfortably. As simple as going for what you want in life because the only constant is your desires. Most desires can be fulfilled with money at disposal.

Addie would take this beyond the point she’s trying to make. She’d say you can always unravel your thoughts and choose not to believe the template imposed on you as a kid. What if your psyche is a social construct and by the end of your life, you realized you haven't truly asked yourself what kind of life you’d always wanted to live? What kinds of seeds do you want to grow? Maybe the ending doesn't look like having a garden full of trees. Maybe the ending looks like nurturing the plants, letting sunrays hit your face when you water them, thoughts about soils running in your head in the middle of the night because the idea of your tree growing excites your bones. Maybe growing a tree is just a kind of point in its sake.

The contradiction feels too big to ignore sometimes. Their friendship makes perfect sense if Selene ever puts Addie’s way of thinking into consideration. But the repulsive reaction towards her narrative makes her feel so drawn to, as if they’re braiding a hair but choose to keep a clean strand till the end. If there are any two sides of an argument, they always oppose each other, and sometimes she thinks Addie’s default thinking becomes a part of her she can’t quite name, but as a consequence of having Addie in her life, she had to acknowledge them.

Looking at the tulips, she’s been staring at it long enough to find herself not thinking about which flowers to pick. A call from Malcolm jolted her to the side asking if she could drop by a lobby to pick up his clothes. She quickly picked a bouquet, checked it out with minimal concern whether Addie is gonna like this gift. She’d put a lot of time at the florist and that would mean already a lot to Addie. Part of her feels guilty for thinking that way. But doubts that arise in her mind about Addie, she always finds a way to rationalize it down. It usually comes back down to, It’s who I am. She accepts me for who I am.

—

“You could’ve gotten me a pair of socks, I am unconsciously developing a habit of wearing socks all the time at home, but I don't think I have enough variety.” Addie grinned and not complaining for one bit about the gift. She loved it, Selene knows it and her saying that just makes Selene want to buy it immediately for her. It is rare for Addie to speak about desiring something material. She’s always unfazed by things she finds desirable.

The window opens for a cast of light to penetrate in their way. Her room is giving off a smell of closeness, ready to witness their day together as two persons exchanging merits. One is nothing but radiating pure love and the other is always trying to find love within herself. Selene’s husband is out of town and the two of them arrange time together for almost every hour. Selene is on the computer, creating a listing and reviewing customer feedback on her service.

“I have a client who thinks that I talk way too much for my job.” She’s a prospective customer of mine, her hatred of me is getting in the way of my strategy. “We see each other almost everyday, and my colleagues are betting on me to close her, she’s one of our hardest regulars” She speaks faintly, hoping Addie would ask her more about it. She sees her reading in the corner of her room, a book that she needs to finish before next week’s class.

“Maybe because she sees through your intention, so her guards are up” She said blatantly. “What is my intention?”

“Well, you start seeing the connection as a challenge to win. Your colleagues are trying to get into your head, they’re using your skill without them lifting a finger.”

“But I will get such a valuable raise if I do this. There’s something in it for myself too. I see an opportunity, I take it.” She turned her chair around, facing her directly to see if Addie actually thinks her opportunistic mindset is see-through in her professional setting.

“Experience the person, Selene. Don’t think of her as a ball you need to score. She’s a person who comes as she is. She’ll think you have more to offer when you don’t have these ill-intentions plastered on your forehead.”

Chapter 2

Addie’s pessimism is not useful to people. She understands this deeply about herself. Her own intellectual capacity that garnered minds and machines— nothing ordinary about the things she finds beautiful. Selene is never certain that her way of thinking could lead her anywhere. She tries challenging her own thoughts, puts herself away for a second, forgets an identity, but being Selene's friends makes her question the level of individuality.

People, as we understand, are people and people and people. They are creatures, brought to earth, to fit in the system. Systems that are increasingly potent from human structure, and foundations we’re created to do. Machines, and technologies, created by humans are suspending labour. Replacing human’s capacity to do work themselves. The pattern starts to become relentlessly cynical, hyperbole and far away from historical limits.

What other agendas do we have from becoming prisoners of capitalism? Selene is her captive friend. She cannot change Selene’s mind about this matter. The distribution of philosophical ideas to people is useful for them to think for themselves. If someone cares enough about the greater thing, they would disseminate the seeds. To use skills and labour in the working class, climbing the social ladder with pride and prejudices.

I'm so drawn to Selene because of relativity. Her proximate identity is too far away from my own upbringing. She loves materials, objects, and items. The particulars, as Aristotle mentions. Regular people cannot become leaders. Leaders are philosophers, musicians or poets who recognise The Form. A bigger picture seen not from the surface, rather the inherent nature that’s brought to the world through soul acquisition.

She looks at a man walking with a straight face, zebra patterned shirt with a suitcase. Smoking a cigar in his mouth, wondering eyes. What is she thinking about? What’s on his mind? Where is he going? If somebody approaches him, which part about that person would he notice first? A car that looks like somebody’s identity crisis. So many designs and colours are abnormal from the usual cars in traffic. It has four wheels, four doors and two headlights. Same features like other cars. But what makes the owner choose this one? These differences are particulars, and extension of their own being and existence. Just like the body is an extension of the mind.

It’s funny to say my mind looks like the house I'm living in. The relationships I have had, the items I own. Would one say I am identical to Selene’s upbringing because I’m her friend? Nothing about that is true at all. I question this friendship everyday to my core, but the essence that we have is interwoven very intricately since we were kids.

My mom would always tell me to take care of Selene before she got off work. Selene would live with me every time she has problems at home. Mom knows everything about this good friend of mine. But I bet her family even remembers my name. She was a treacherous kid who always had things figured out on her own. I'm glad my family is hers since it was decided by the master of the universe to let us be friends.

Maybe my choice of thinking is coming from unexpressed domestic privilege. Love came to me and I didn't have to seek it. Selene is looking for love, and always has been. She knows the value of loving an item money could buy, a relationship that looks transactional. She loves what other people around her love. She only knows love because she never thought that love comes around easily. Her love for the future, her love for her husband and her love with work. Loving means living — a lesson she learned herself but never quite taught.

While I'm on the other hand, I'm taking love for granted. It's hidden enough for me to notice but it is there. I follow my passion not to survive, but as a result of sitting on love. It’s in the back of my mind so it becomes underappreciated. Somewhere along the lines, my vision starts to lack one, as my question becomes deeper for the universe.

The effervescence of doing what good advice tells us not to do– attaching to an outcome, aiming for a perfect score, the pursuit of doing so should come inherently from the desire to experience. But am I actually missing out? If I let ‘good’ advice dictate my life? I cannot be human to follow what is commonly advised. Drink alcohol, burn my lungs, sleep less than I should. Would it solve the pain I have to become better? The paradoxes are everywhere around me. These things don't serve me in a traditional sense if I do them, but I feel human, and more alive when I do these things.

Selene is nothing like me. She’s having fun with her life. Her very definition of fun is even purely different from mine. She finds fur-coated jeans beautiful, her eyes want to own them. I don’t want to own anything. Ownership and accountability means the same to me. I own an item and that item is now part of my life? I take accountability for it, it's another means to lose a sense of freedom. She works for money, but I refuse to have that intention even though money is on the other side waiting.

I think an art is only valid to be judged from a personal introspection. This art I'm creating is bad if I think it is bad. It's not bad when I think people think it is bad. I have an understanding towards it, a narrative built around why this art is good. In my understanding, an art is bad if it takes the form of how people want it to be. But it feels lonely when you’re the only one who thinks art is good. Sometimes, agreeing to people’s definitions feels way safer than thinking alone to yourself.

—

Selene has had a couple of boyfriends before she got married. Addie has had one situation since high school. They hook up with other people while still maintaining good proximity with each other.

She thinks of Caleb as a friend. Someone to fulfill her sexual needs and their intimacy is limited within that account. No romantic dates, she doesn't find him attractive, even though Caleb is clearly infatuated with Addie, which is a topic she doesn't want to bring up every time Selene brings it up.

The human mind in thinking what works and what doesn't is truly peculiar to her. Sometimes Selene thinks Addie is just trying not to be human. She’s afraid of loving. Love is so scary to her to the point she risks everything else except love. She’d question her relationships with material things and make sure nothing is remotely attached to the way she lives. She’s very scared about owning her own existence.

“I don’t get this about you. You will find every absurd way to detach every time your heart finds a reason to like something. Everyday I feel like you’re scared to live. Scared to borrow another day worth of air to breathe. The words you speak are even borrowed so you can drift away whenever you’d like. Run as fast as you can. Turn the table around just to find yourself heading somewhere you can’t help but like.” Addie turns her face at her letting the room’s ambience mask her aggression.

“Caleb isn’t someone you need to be scared of. I can smell he’s serious about taking you out. I know your fear of letting him close is because you just want freedom. But you’ve had freedom your entire life Addie.”

“I think he’s seeing some other woman.” She replied without knowing the full truth of the matter, as if the sentence should make Selene uncomfortable and talk about something else.

“That’s only because he’s been seeing you for so long and never quite got the closure he’s hopeful about”

The rest of the conversation feels like Selene’s voice bouncing off of a wall, rather than getting penetrated into Addie’s remote frame of thoughts.

—

There’s something about how the wall always finds her thinking to herself. Her thoughts get scribbled onto the ceiling, making them more impossible to ignore. She thinks, thinks and thinks, thinking about other people’s way of thinking. She couldn’t discover which thoughts that fill up her mind were hers. The room gets smaller in her imagination, squeezing in her body and stealing the air from her breath.

Whenever she feels this tight, she calls Addie to comfort her, but having a husband makes that arrangement difficult to adjust. Caleb is not a person she could confide in when it comes to holding a space together for her anxiety. He pushes it away, hoping it’ll go on its own as sleep takes over the night. Looking at him snoring next to her makes her think of escaping. Running away from him, and tearing this place down. Her anxiety kicks into her consciousness, calling Addie right now doesn't seem like a sensible thing to do when she’s luring, madly taken over.

She grabbed her laptop, wrote as many words as she could. A blank space that she’s been staring at the whole day, becomes one of those walls with dramatic writing. This rage always asks me to write, it is one relevant and harmless thing it would ask her of when the quietness escalates the noise. She couldn't hear her own voice.

Something about a quiet night, lives a madman waiting to be noticed. He’s been living in her system, waiting for the moon to rise. A feeling that's been bottled for a lifetime, so she could feel normal during the day. She hates how numb she can be during the day, but at night her feelings won't let her be at peace. They want an orchestral show with a madman holding a withering flower.

During the day, the car breaks down, walking down a hallway, lifting weights, eating breakfast , talking to mother , leaving the door open, and peeling an orange. Her days sound like a list. A non-emotional event that happens while watching a Truman show. Except, she is the observer of her own meaningless life. Knowing that doesn't change things. She can still feel entertained by the idea of her living a vain occupied life. Truman never asks.

While she believes she’s always at the right time, and place. A group of people are holding buckets of water waiting for a cue from the director signalling Selene walking down the stage. She is the director and actor of her own life. She directs, writes and nothing comes out of her emotional brain. If Selene knows that Selene is the director would she be mad about it? Would she be mad that her life is arranged by a third person, which is herself, and not in her best interest?

Would Selene be mad that a person who is herself is on stage, living not for herself, but for the audience to satisfy an entertainment industry? This anxiety is the director trying to arrange or write her life, not in her best interest. She forgets Addie and Caleb, writing things that disturbed her during the day where she doesn't get a chance to interfere in her life.

About the Competition

The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 by Hashtag Kalakar is a prestigious platform celebrating diverse voices in poetry and creative writing. It aims to foster creativity and provide a stage for writers to share their unique stories and perspectives with a global audience.

We extend our sincere gratitude to Ain Fatini for sharing "A Voice and A Noise" with the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. Her work offers a profound exploration of friendship and self-discovery, resonating deeply with readers. We wish her continued success in her creative journey.

About Hashtag Kalakar

Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.