The Sound of a Voice (Semi-Advanced)

I had known when I woke up in the hospital that life might never be okay again. Even then, filled with medications, I could feel a terrible pain in the side of my face. Then the doctor had come in and gently tried to break the news. My family was dead, and I would never speak again. I did not remember the accident, just a normal Sunday morning, driving to church. Yet here I was, seventeen years old, mute, alone in the world, with a terrible scar down one side of my face. I had been discharged from the hospital and taken home by my aunt and uncle. They were childless, and aging, and did not really seem to know how to care for me, much less comfort me and try to soothe the raging ache left by the accident. They would never meet my eyes for a more than a second, and I did not know whether this was because of the scar or because my face looked so much like my father's had when he was seventeen.

I had not gone back to the same school. My aunt and uncle lived halfway across the state. I had not been able to say a real goodbye to my friends. None of them had sent cards. Perhaps there was a reason for this - after all, what were they going to say? 'I'm sorry your whole family is dead and you'll be mute for the rest of your life'? So I started at a new school in the middle of the year. My classes were fairly similar to those I had left behind, but I could not concentrate on them as I once had. I could not look at the boy across the row from me in math class, or he would remind me too much of my younger brother Mark, and I who'd start crying again, the silent tears that slid down my face and onto my shirt. Almost no one spoke to me. I did not communicate with any of them.

I took to writing and drawing, always carrying a notebook with me so I could communicate if anyone tried to talk to me. No one did, but there was always a little bit of hope. As two months passed, though, and I was still alone, I began to give up. My once-attractive face was disfigured by the scar, my grey eyes dull with pain and loss. Perhaps I would always be alone. It was with this thought in my mind that I began to avoid people. I sat by the lockers to eat, not in the lunchroom. I stayed by myself, avoided group work, and never went anywhere outside of school where there might be other people. Most days I spent alone. It was on a day that I expected to be like every other that I once again tried to sit in the lunchroom, to somehow bear the sound of everyone else's voices around me. It was an awful sound to me, knowing that I would never speak again.

(That'd be a 'his', actually - my character is a guy - but I wouldn't mind at all.)

(I don't mind what anyone joins as - go ahead! Just jump in! :) )

I looked up when I heard a girl's voice. I stared at her for a brief moment, then set a notebook on the table and wrote in a neat hand, 'What do you want? An answer to your questions? Yes, I really am mute. Yes, my family really is dead. No, I do not live on my own. No, I do not want be eating just semisolids, but I can't chew properly yet. No, I do not remember the accident, nor do I want to tell you about it or about my "pain" or "specialness". No, I do not want to be told that it will get better in time. No, I do not want to be your friend - I don't want charity. You want to see the scar? Take a good long look, then leave me alone.' I pushed the notebook over to her with a bitter, sardonic smile that made the side of my face hurt as it stretched the scar. The smile dropped a moment later so I would not have to lift a hand to my face to try and soothe the pain. I did not want to show such weakness.

I knew that my message had been anything but kind. I did not care. I was deeply rooted in my silent misery, and I did not want anyone else to come along and try to pull me out. There had been several sorts of these people. The first had been the overly concerned ones, always treating me as though I would break or start crying at the drop of a hat. The second had been the ones who were convinced that I would be able to talk again, or that being mute wasn't that bad, really. The third were the ones who I disliked the most, the ones who treated me with insincere kindness that I could tell was really only because I couldn't speak. I wanted no more of this. I wanted a friend, yes, but I wanted one that would just accept me for who I was, and who was not going to ask the annoying and hurtful questions or try to convince me that this just made me special and unique.

I glanced at this newcomer for only a brief moment, then wrote a single word in my notebook. 'Raphael.' I gave no middle name or last name. As for my last name, I hardly knew what it was anymore, the one I had lived with, or that of my aunt, my legal guardian. I stared at the girl for a moment longer, then left my notebook on the table and returned to my applesauce, ignoring them entirely. If they wanted to stay, they would stay and talk, and I would sit and listen, agonized by every sound passing through their lips. If they decided that my demeanor was altogether too cold, they would leave, and I would be alone again. I had gotten used to the loneliness. Perhaps it was best that it remained undisturbed. The last thing I needed when I had just begun to get used to not speaking at all was for someone to come along and remind me as to what I was missing out on. I wanted these two to leave, and I wanted them gone as soon as possible, but I knew that such a thing was unlikely. I had caught a glimpse of the book the second person had been reading, too, which brought a frown to my face. I disliked the book, and disliked all the hype surrounding it when in my opinion it had a lot of room for improvement.

Their comments bit at me, and I frowned darkly, still not turning around to acknowledge either of them. I wanted to grab my notebook back, to write to the girl that no, she hadn't 'heard' that my name was Raphael, because I hadn't said anything, and that saying that she apparently heard it seemed incredibly insensitive - not that I particularly cared, but still...I wanted to do it. I also wanted to let the second newcomer know that I had no intention of striking up any sort of a conversation with him, and that he needed to stop being so pretentious, get himself an actual name, and perhaps actually introduce himself properly. After all, there were millions of doctors throughout the world, so how could he claim to be 'the Doctor'? I desperately hoped that these people would go away and leave me alone. Their voices grated on my ears. I had forgotten in my loneliness how annoying other people could seem when one was in a bad mood.

Realizing that these people had no intentions if leaving, I silently packed up my lunch, then tore the page I had been writing on out of my notebook, adding a bit to it. 'I don't know that you're going to get a conversation out of me, because you're not. I don't know either of you, but you apparently know one another, so I will be leaving now. I'm not some puzzle or game to be figured out, nor am I some kid who you're supposed to somehow 'get a conversation out of'. I don't need or want your conversation. Goodbye.' I left the page on the table, then stood, grabbed my lunch bag, and walked away. Perhaps it was rude, and perhaps I was only furthering my own loneliness, but there was no way that I had been going to sit there and listen to them.

I whirled around, my expression one of barely contained fury. I glared at the speaker for a moment, then turned back around and continued to walk away, hoping to find a place where I could just eat my lunch in peace without strange people coming up to me, insisting that they would get a conversation out of me, and referring to me as a clam. Just because I'm mute doesn't mean that I shouldn't be able to be treated like a person! I protested furiously in my mind, unable to write anything down for the moment because my notebook was still tucked under my arm. My rudeness felt entirely justified now.

Finally, I settled down in an empty stairwell, perched halfway up the stairs, an began to eat my lunch again. I decided then that I would not try to sit in the lunchroom anymore. It was too hard to hear everyone else's voice all around me, too hard to even try to pretend I was normal, or to avoid the glances, and not hear the whispers. I hated this place. But I had to go to school - my aunt and uncle flatly refused to let me take passes online or at their house, which I might never actually call my home. So I was stuck here, with my scar and my semi-solid lunches and the other students with their normal lives.

As I ate, I took out my phone and, as I had so many times, reread the obituary I had written for my family. Every word of it was seared into my memory. My parents' names, those of my three siblings - Mark, Daniel, and Rebeccah - the terrible words, 'survived by their son, Raphael Jesse Angelopoulos.' Those words tore at me every time I saw them, and I could not help but wonder why I had been chosen to survive this accident. I disliked my last name, too, for although it was a link to my family's heritage, it was also often difficult for people to pronounce, and I could no longer tell them how. With a sigh, I put the phone away. I didn't use it for much anymore, mostly texting my aunt and uncle when I needed something. They knew better than to call me. When something was a real emergency, I knew to call my uncle and communicate him in a sort of hissing, clicking Morse code, in which the hisses were dashes and the clicks were dots. Ad a child, he and my father had used this to send secret messages to one another, and now I used it as my only means of non-written communication.

I stared blankly at the message for a few moments, then set my phone down with shaking hands. I did not know why I was being thanked, but there was a certain sinking feeling about I was getting, and I felt for a moment as though I might be sick. I knew who must have sent the message, of course, for they had signed their name - or if not their name, at least what they called themselves. Perhaps he had someow found out something about me, but if he had I did not know how. I had a couple accounts on various social media sites, but rarely if ever used them, leaving the internet as a whole without all that much information on me. Still, whatever this person had found, they seemed to think that it was enough, and all of a sudden I felt terribly exposed. What was he trying to do? Why was he finding out anything at all about me, becoming fixated on making me have a conversation? I knew I had no classes with him, though, so when the bell rang to signal the end of lunch, I almost flew to my next class, grateful as I had never been before for no one noticing me. Being alone was better than having someone strange fixating on you.