It was late April when he decided he would finally speak to you.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyjWJvNicnG
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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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡt11UhEvLKb
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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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyEddGScK3A
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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWssfo05ahM
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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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkVHsDlkbcn
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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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqJatmJkjdb
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And why should they? What worth were you if you refused to speak as everybody else did?797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVUFeEgdJFt
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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXsE5TbhpYI
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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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBbTeKeuznh
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It was not something you were used to, and you could not even begin to express how much the fact frustrated you.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5k7DW2PNFT
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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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9zI7pqUvfk
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-------------------------------797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBLOtJRYSKv
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You learned his name was Frederick Chilton and that he was the chief of staff of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHwF6yvp0yu
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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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCcHbKiqus0
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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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvncRCJPz6A
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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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdxnShpxXN2
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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkjGKIgMPIy
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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4kOVrpne6y
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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRLjBJ4NiQw
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You could train your mind to accept your socially unorthodox lifestyle, but your heart would refute it every step of the way.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqmaE48vYLU
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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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6t6a4dO3SS
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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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNNKcll3zn3
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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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡILOP5tt1mQ
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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.797Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkCDAlqvwNK
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