This was inspired by my American Literature class at CSUF around 1994.
I wonder why my voice sounds kind of crackly when I ask the guy waiting next to me about the Lit. class I missed last week. It comes to me after I sit down at a desk in the darkened room. I realize, a bit proudly, that I have spoken but five words the whole day. Imagine that. I think of my vocal chords sitting in the darkness of my throat, white and shiny, unmoving. The rhythmic air of breath, and water, and potato have passed over them but still they stay, quiet.
A girl takes the seat next to me. "What movie was it?" she asks.
"I'm not sure. I was thinking maybe Il Postino." I run the words through my head even as I speak them, counting them, hoping to break some sort of non existent record. Fourteen. Fourteen words in five hours.
Mr. Y walks in then, a large stack of papers under his arm. Hemley, I think. I take to drawing on the Insight to pass the time he takes passing out the stories. I give Professor Kapoor a hat for his head, Mahatma Ghandi, sunglasses. They both look better, I think.
All the while Mr. Y is sprawled at the front of the room talking, drawling out his mesmerizing Mississippi accent. A writing assignment, I think with excitement, then drop into the surface of disappointment when I find it's technical, not creative.
You want to write creative? I admonish myself. Take his creative writing class. I scratch in my journal some interesting Mississippi pronunciations. "Tee-yews-dee" for Tuesday. "Skyewl" for school. Still, I do not speak. I do not participate.
Have I ever spoken in this class? I think. Once, maybe twice, a while ago. The first time I gave the definition of "alliteration". Maybe only once. I can't think of the other.
I listen with interest the first story Mr. Y reads, about furniture on a lawn in the dark. I imagine the girl with wispy dark hair, big eyes. The boy is younger, skinny and pale. The man walks with a swagger, a determined swagger, bent with the weight of the bag. He says his words with a measured air of "I don't care what happens. Everything from this point on doesn't matter."
After the story I listen with half an ear to the discussion. I really want to read Hemley but am not so rude as to flip through the pages. I imagine my vocal chords again, bored at inactivity. They are used to singing every day, strained and painful, but challenged.
What's not a short story? the discussion continues. A narrative that is idea or subject driven. There is no character development, it is not character driven.
My attention is pulled again when Mr. Y announces he is going to read one of his own short stories. Finally. The stories in the Norton Anthology are dead to me. This will be a live story. Mr. Y is asked if he's nervous.
"Not at all," he says. "My throat's just dry. It happens sometimes."
I listen as he reads, hearing for the first time in class a writer's own voice in his own story. Soon I'm engrossed in the words.
A noise behind me startles me out of concentration. I glance behind me, and there a man sits half asleep, head on chest, snores issuing from the nose. Another snore, and I'm needlessly embarrassed as more kids turn their heads. Their faces brighten at the recognition of the sound, at the sight of the man's head resting against the wall now, mouth half open, eyes closed. They look from me to him, pleased amusement on their faces, as I were his sister or girlfriend and somehow connected with his sleep.
Mr. Y continues to read, either unaware or knowing and not caring. I think of the irony of the situation. Mr. Y would not be embarrassed. He would make a joke, perhaps, and continue to read. I think of all the words he's saying, all of the words he's said, all of the ones he will. Hundreds, maybe even thousands. I think of fourteen. Fourteen. I think of emotions without words.
I think, how many people can get through a school day without saying but fourteen words? Not many. Not many at all. Especially not Mr. Y.
