It was late April when he decided he would finally speak to you.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQbe267wNkc
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXANLtjO44j
He turned to face you, and after taking a heavy mouthful of coffee, he pursed his lips for a moment and asked you what your name was.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm8obDzTSC1
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGCITO7HUQi
It was a simple question, one that you were tempted to answer with your tongue. But you faltered, thinking that he surely must have remembered the varying inflections of your voice from that December afternoon, and how he must have silently laughed at you for it. Ducking your gaze from his, you slipped your hand into the bag you always brought with you, digging for the notepad your social interactions were dependent on.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuhsASFpatc
Tearing a page out, you quickly scribbled your name with the ball-point pen you safely kept tucked away in your pocket. Quietly, you slid the torn page across the table, choosing to direct your gaze towards your fidgeting hands as you waited for his response.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP2KQMf8puf
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrYNCJnoIoY
Most looked at you a bit strangely whenever you handed them notes rather than speaking. And you could often feel your larynx constrict whenever you heard the voices of others. Those melodious voices that were unobstructed by the ever-shifting tones yours seemed to be riddled with.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuBnH9O86dI
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡANgEzSHJnw
It ignited a small fire within your breast, but of course, you could never speak of it. You could not hiss and spit at the people who liked to taunt you with their own unhampered tongues, you could only sit and seeth in anger. Perhaps you could muster a fiery glare in their direction, but you found most would pretend not to notice.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP2STfZ0zZQ
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUMJ5N7hjxN
And why should they? What worth were you if you refused to speak as everybody else did?792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6zL18y2mbe
Lost in the flurry of thoughts that tended to swirl about in your head whenever you thought about the problem of your voice, you failed to notice him bring out his own pen and sign his name below yours.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqybcFahQOw
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0EJA7I8LIi
You looked up from your hands only when you heard the familiar crinkle the paper made as he slid it back to you just as you had to him. You searched his face as you took the note with a free hand, trying to find some misguided intention or other. But as always with anytime you tried to peek beneath the surface, he would shut you out.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡniAwNSCQaw
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzkN065uzx4
It was not something you were used to, and you could not even begin to express how much the fact frustrated you.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7Ul2YrQTnt
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbFDcAGctLI
Nonetheless, you felt the corners of your mouth twitch into a genuine smile. He did not return the expression, but you swore the color in his eyes became just a little bit lighter when he glanced towards you again.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUG36rDadqD
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqjZqAmSVtq
-------------------------------792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz9vaGspkrB
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfLvZVpdhqm
You learned his name was Frederick Chilton and that he was the chief of staff of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ86RElt7LHx
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVTZBe9Kx7m
You felt as if you had heard the name somewhere before, but you could not for the life of you remember where or when, or or if you ever had at all.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2xpdUfv3op
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOyVvs2PZY1
It would not be the first time you seemed to have a recollection of things that had never happened, nor would it be the last.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuxUaCtxNJ2
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtS1Ya1p2oe
And as you held the yellow slip of paper between a thumb and a finger, having read the text inscribed on it just short of one hundred times since that April afternoon, you wondered if perhaps your subconscious had dreamed up the whole thing just to appease your ever-growing sense of loneliness.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT2IfeNbhZF
Your choice to become a selective mute had not come without a heavy price. Humans were a hopelessly socially-dependent species, and if you chose to betray that social nature, well, then you may as well have never existed in the first place.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKfciMLMa1z
You were like a ghost in that way, you supposed. Doomed to wander forever while you were incapable of attaching yourself to anyone or anything.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1qx8ri8rMP
You had told yourself long ago that you lived the way you did because God had always intended for you to live this way when He twisted the fibers of your larynx into a tight knot. Although that became a lie that had become increasingly harder and harder to believe as time wore on.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlF1t0X3u2b
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwrSOFcCXkj
You could train your mind to accept your socially unorthodox lifestyle, but your heart would refute it every step of the way.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDKL6sWrDU6
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡptEGdEx65v
Once, you had thought the feeling would pass, that you would adapt to your existence. But you had found out early on in your adult life that it would not be so easy. Quite poignantly, the universe told you that such a feeling of contentedness in your life would demand far more effort on your part than you had initially imagined. Effort that you weren’t ready to exert at the time, just as you weren’t now, even as you sat by yourself in the large estate your parents left you, with only the sounds of the house to remind you that there was indeed a world outside of your self.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxeXjmKLWwD
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdetz9Zly3v
A world you had once been more than content to observe at one time. But now you wanted to touch it, to mold it like so many of your peers in your university days had dreamed of doing. You wanted to unwind the iron chain you had wrapped around your throat and let your voice, and all of its varying tones, be known to the heavens. But then you would remember how the world would frown at such a display, how it would chide and slap the hands of the beasts they had worked so hard to ensure would never rise up to lay their grubby hands on the world. Taint it with their miserable and misshapen fingers, their eyes that always insisted in looking in two directions at once, or their vile tongues that could not tell an ‘a’ from an ‘e’. It was then that you began to recede again, within the shell of your loneliness, so the world did not brand you with the disapproving gaze you knew it would turn to you the very moment you allowed even the smallest and most insignificant of words to slip up from your throat.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJBsytL0V62
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4eZ44gmnDX
You were not born to sing as others were. You were born in an empty silence that would come to define you. You looked listlessly towards the finer examples of humanity, and then the less than exemplary bits too. Reaching, coveting, something that would fill the emptiness inside you.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6TizUuxc9k
792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpgNf3rYRjP
But silence was silence, and no matter how many people you could find to blame for your predicament that familiar sense of hollowness would always be there.792Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlRJH9AxaP4
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