Twentieth of August, Year Two Thousand and Ten.

My class schedules are weird. I have a class from seven-thirty to ten. I get a four-hour lunch break. Two-to-four. Six-to-nine. Professors have lives, I guessed. So the rest of us have to fit into theirs for the privilege of learning from their fountain of genius. Right? Whatever.

I just got home. But to be honest, I barely lived through six-to-nine, and I didn’t even attend two-to-four.

When my friends got to me at the cafeteria earlier today, we headed out for lunch then drove to an arts supply store in the next city. We got back at campus an hour before my next class, but theirs were about to start, so I still had time to wander around.

There was this girl from across the street. She was just standing still. She wasn’t crossing or anything. She was looking at me, straight towards me. And then she smiled. I tried to wave at her, to say hello. Maybe I’ve met here before, I thought. Maybe she knows me. And while I went through my memories to think of who she was, suddenly, she was taking a step forward. She began to cross the street, but she was still looking at me. She was walking slowly, and stopping right before a car would pass by. She didn’t even look, but she’d stop.

And she’d still look at me.

And she was taking slow, careful steps.

The street was four lanes wide. And after the third lane, she was close enough for me to just pull her out of the way, because I don’t know if she was crossing the street, or walking down the isle of her imaginary wedding.

“What is wrong with you?!”

What is wrong with me? What’s wrong with you! Have I met you before? What were you doing crossing the street so slowly like that?

“Let go of my arm!” My hand was still on her left arm, holding her, pulling her to safety, even though we’re at a sidewalk. “Let go of me! Please! Please!”

I don’t know why I wasn’t letting go. Maybe she’d leave if I did, I don’t know.

“Who are you? Do I know you?”

What?

“Why aren’t you talking? What’s wrong with you? Please let go of me.” She was struggling. “Why aren’t you talking? Please say something. Speak!”

Oh shit, she’s blind.

She’s also very talkative.

I let go of her arm, but quickly took her wrist. I kept on tugging it, dragging her along, and looking for a place to sit down.

“I don’t need your assistance! Where are you taking me?”

I get that she must have been panicking, but hold on, lady. Seriously.

“Tell me who you are!”

Jesus fucking Christ, how was I going to talk to her? I pulled up her wrist. Her hand was shut tight, so I slapped it open. Then I tried to use sign language into her palm, like Hellen Keller. I think she got the point.

“I—“ She hesitated. “I don’t understand sign language. I’m sorry.”

Okay, new plan.

“Try to spell letters into my skin.”

I think she did understand what I was trying to get at.

“I’m blind.”

I know.

I wrote the letter I into her palm. The capital letter, with the bars on the top and bottom, so she’d know it wasn’t a slash or something. “I,” she repeated. And then, “M.” And as soon as I knew she understood the things I wrote, I picked up the pace. IM MUTE, I spelled.

“I know.”

I tugged at her wrist, and she followed.

“Hey, not so fast! You’re hurting me!” I loosened my grip. SORRY, I wrote at the back of her hand. “I didn’t quite get that.” It was in cursive. “Could you write it again please?” No, it didn’t matter. We kept on walking. “Please? Write it again. Please.” She doesn’t shut up, does she? SORRY. In print this time. “Sorry. My teacher never taught me letters in cursive.” Of course he wouldn’t. Cursive letters are different with each hand that writes it. Printed letters were basically the same for everyone. SORRY. “It’s okay. It’s just that I couldn’t understand things that kept on twisting. They never spelled out anything to me.”

I had nothing to say, so I didn’t talk.

“Where are you taking me?” Where were you going anyway? “I don’t know. I was trying to escape, now I’m looking for someone.” From whom? And who? “My friend Aya was supposed to walk me to where my Daddy picks me up. I study at the university, and I have a condo unit around here but I don’t use it often. Daddy misses me easily.” I didn’t ask that, and you’re missing the point. Where will he pick you up? “My mother is dead, so there’s no one home now, and I’m the only family he has. Me and Aya. We both lost our moms, and now she’s like my sister.” Okay, I’m sorry to hear that. I still have both my parents. But where do you need me to take you? “She’s my best friend, and she used to be the maid’s daughter. The maid was my first teacher. She taught me how to read and write and speak.” I don’t see what you’re trying to get at here. “There was this time when she taught me what a dog is and what it looks like. It ran away from me whenever I tried to feel what its face was like. It was really fluffy.” Don’t you ever stop talking, ever?

I know that the world can never be shut up, ever. But please make sense.

“Could you let go of me please?”

I didn’t trust her. But I didn’t know what else to do. She stopped struggling now, anyway, so I just loosened my grip and—

She ran.

But I followed her.

For a blind girl, she was pretty fast and it seemed like she knew where to go. She went straight ahead the sidewalk, and all that were in her way cleared themselves from her path. “Excuse me! Coming through! I’m blind! Get out of my way!” She never stops talking.

“Mack!” She called out to a traffic enforcer, and he blew his whistle and waved a STOP sign towards the cars, and the girl just ran across the street. When I was about to cross, Mack let the cars pass. It was like she owned the place. How is this even possible? I waited for the cars to stop coming, and then I crossed the street like a normal person. I didn’t run anymore. What was the point? I was late for class, and I must have lost her anyway. There was no need to hurry.

Then I was in the middle of the street, crossing with others, when I saw her again. She was just there. I think it was the end of her map, because she was touching walls and posts now. I ran to her and grabbed her wrist. Listen.

“Listen! I don’t want your help.”

That’s not what I’m trying to say. AGH, HOW DO YOU TALK TO THE BLIND?

ROB. I spelled out on her arm.

“There’s nothing you can steal from me. I swear.” She started to panic, I think. “Daddy doesn’t let me handle money, and if I had to, Aya always kept it, and I don’t have a smartphone because touch screen is useless to me. Please, all I have are noteb—“

I put my hand over her mouth. Shut up.

I think it made her panic. I touched her shoulder, hoping to calm her down. Women are difficult. When they’re blind, it gets trickier.

She was about to cry.

Naturally, I’ve been to those places where parents with “differently abled” kids—I don’t like being called differently abled. I’m handicapped; I can’t speak. Something is incomplete and that’s not a problem. Nobody’s offended. What’s the big deal?—anyway, they’d let them come over, and they’d help each other out. They taught each other how to teach their kids. I remember that the blind were taught to recognize people by voice, or they’d have them touch their faces, and give it a name. Mom didn’t really need to go to that place much—it wasn’t much of a problem for me to not to talk–but it was a good thing to know I wasn’t the only one out there. And I think this information finally became a bit useful.

I pulled her wrist and took her hand. I put it on my face, and let her touch my cheeks, and the bridge on my nose. And I let her fingertips trace my lips. Then I traced ROB on her hand again. She took her free hand and traced underneath my eyes. She curled her fingers like how you would when a bird would perch on your hand. I closed my eyes, then she used the back of her fingers to feel my lashes, then down to the skin of my cheek, right to the jaw line.

I opened my eyes again, and looked at her face. She had dark hair that ended at her shoulders. She was wide-eyed, like a child or a doll, with long dark lashes. But her eyes were the color of honey, the same color her hair glowed with when the sunlight hit her just the right way. Her lips were small. Her skin was pale. Not fair white, just pale, like she’s been sick since she was born. But since she ran from me, she looked so easily tired and there were just irregular blotches of pink on her cheeks. Actually, there was a tint of jaundice in her complexion. I don’t know if she was Asian or if she was just sick. She had bruises on her arm and her wrist.

Then I realized that the bruises came from me.

And her free hand slapped me in the face.

What the hell was that for?!

“Stop looking at me!” How’d she know? “I know I look like a sick freak, okay? But you don’t have to pull me around like a dog on a leash. I’m alright by myself.”

I’m trying to help you out here, so stop being so annoying. Where do you want me to take you?

“Look, I can find Aya myself.”

Just tell me!

“Get your phone.”

I switched hands, holding her with my left to make sure she won’t leave. I used my right hand to get the phone from my pocket. I tapped her wrist with my phone. What do you need me to dial?

She gave me a number, and I put the phone to her ear.

“Daddy? Where? No. I’m with a boy. No. He kidnapped me.” Wait, what? “He’s holding me here against my will.” No, wait. Don’t say that. “He won’t let go of me. I tried to run. No, he doesn’t know my name.” What do I do? If I hung up, he’d have thought I was guilty. “Daddy wants to talk to you.”

I put the phone to my ear. Hello? “What do you want?”

I want to give you back your daughter. Where do I take her? Where are you parked? “Let go of my daughter. What do you want?”

I want you to pay for my tuition for art school so my father can come back and not work as a domestic helper in a foreign country.

I want you to find us and take your daughter.

I want to know how you could have put up with this devious little –thing. For years! I mean, look at her! Smiling like she won a game. Her lips curled in an evil, evil way. I think she secretly practiced dark magic and traded her sight for demonic powers.

“Hello?”

Yes, hello?

“Look, if you won’t give me back my daughter, I’ll—“ I hung up.

I sent him a text message.

I’m mute. Your daughter tried to cross the street. I’m trying to help her.

“Where can I find you?” Send.

08/19/2010

I live in a world that proves to be highly ideal. For one, I may have been born blind, but I had people to do things for me. Daddy made sure of it. And I had a friend who did everything with me, went to school with me and be everything I couldn’t be for me. Secondly, if I needed or wanted anything, I could just ask, and it’d be more or less there if it were possible: reprinted versions of books in braille, audiobooks of all sorts, any and all the music I wanted, tickets to any live concert. But I didn’t like to ask Daddy for plenty of things, because I knew he’d give all of them anyway. I’ve met people who have been “bratty” or “spoiled”. I’ve listened to them demand things from their parents and complain about the earth and say that everything is inadequate and there is just so much more, more, more. So they go out and ask for more, search for more, demand for more and complain more often. And I think they’re pretty happy with themselves. But I think there is no pleasure in that when you know you can have anything you asked for, anyway. There is nothing in the world that I want, and all that I want are things nobody can get a hold of, no amount of money could reach to it. The only things worth touching are things that are sacred, Dorian. Henry Wotton said that. I think that’s how it was read, I remember it was that way. But I think what’s important to know is that the only things worth wanting are the things that cannot be had. So there’s nothing I want.

When I woke up this morning, Daddy had bought me a new piece of software where I could just talk to the computer as much as I’d want, and it would type down things for me so Aya didn’t have to.

I really like talking; talking is what I mostly do.

Talking is how I fill up a vastly dark, empty world with things I like to create on my own. Things in the dark. Things that are mine.

To be honest, the world isn’t really dark. And the world isn’t empty at all. I just feel alone but I’m not, and I don’t need to see things to know that they’re there.

I don’t get why people think I see the world in black. I don’t know what black is and I don’t see it. They tried to explain that black is the color that determines the absence of light. And since I can’t detect light with my eyes, then it means I can only see in black.

But I don’t see in black.

Because light isn’t absent. Barely ever. Just because my eyes don’t work at all, ever, mean that light will ever be absent, right? There are more ways to feel the sun and the wind and fire and the rain and all of the world, there are more ways to see them than with sight. If the world was black then there would be nothing. And just because I’m blind doesn’t mean that the world is in black at all. Just because I’m blind doesn’t mean that nothing else exists, and it’s all empty. And it certainly doesn’t mean I don’t exist anymore.

Even though sometimes, that’s what it feels like.

And that’s why I talk.

I used to never like talking. I liked things to be quiet, or at least, I was okay with everything else making sounds. But all I ever wanted to do was keep quiet and listen to everything and feel everything around me. To see without eyes. I wanted to be able to see the map of the world around me without ever having to use my eyes. I never wanted to feel what darkness feels, or what black feels; I will feel color if I had to feel color, and my blindness will not hinder that.

So I liked being as still and as soundless as I could.

When I sit in the middle of the quiet—and don’t ever tell me that quiet has no middle; there is a middle in the quiet and I have been there and I have seen it; it’s there—it feels like everything exists except me. I can feel the world, my fingertips can see the grain of the wooden desk and the quiet slate of floor polish. When I touch anything, my fingers grow roots, and they branch deeper into the things I touch. I can feel their insides. I can feel the rest of the world from miles away, and the longer I stay still and in contact with everything, the farther the roots reach out. They fill up everything that’s already filled up, things like cork or the insides of paper, or the bodies of stones, or the juice inside a fruit. It feels like there are roots growing out of me, wherever there is skin, and I grow on everything.

You’re like a potato, Aya said when I told her this years back.

Mother! Kately feels like a potato!

What? She asked.

Kately feels like a potato!

But potatoes are mushy and eatable, I said. I don’t think I’d like to be eaten.

Or mushy, Aya added.

Or mushy, I agreed.

Kately, those are mashed potatoes. Her mother corrected, Real potatoes are the lumpy root crops in the farm.

When potatoes are mashed, do they stop being real?

I think they stop being potatoes, Aya said.

Why would they stop being potatoes?

Because things are themselves by what they are, because of what they are. If potatoes don’t do potato-ly things, then they aren’t potatoes.

But potatoes don’t do anything!

They grow roots on their skin and they branch out to everything they touch. Like you.

So okay, whatever. Since then I didn’t argue with Aya about being a potato. Apparently, I do potato-ly things, therefore, I am a potato. I am a potato, growing eyes out of my skin, and my eyes grow roots deep into all the things they touch, and I can see the world with my eyes. As far as I’m concerned, if I can grow eyes and branch out to the world and see everything I touch, then I’ll happily be a potato.

And right then, and every whenever I sit in the middle of all the quiet, I can grow my eyes around into the things that can be seen. I fill the small empty spaces, the gaps of the insides of things, the emptiness in between things that touch, and I fill them with my eyes. And that’s the way I see through and inside everything.

Then I listen to the wind. And I listen to the distance. And I listen to the music of noise and the music of quiet. I listen to the light, and I listen to the paint, and the wood, and the still air. There is so much musical noise in the middle of the quiet. I don’t think anyone has ever been in right in the middle of the quiet, like I have. And I know this because I’ve been there. And no-one else has ever been exactly right in the middle of the quiet, even when I’ve tried to place them there. The music of the sunlight will tell you where the middle of the quiet is. And when you’ve visited it, I hope you could tell me so I’d know that I’m not alone there.

You have to listen to the music. The music of everything. It didn’t have to be from musicians, although I loved them very much. I like Tchaikovsky because his music is like the sound of movement before your feet even touch the ground when you jump. I like David Osborne the pianist, because his music was the sound of your heart in the middle of each beat. I liked the music in coffee houses, and I think they were chosen to be played especially in coffee houses because they effectively capture and replay the music of the steam you blow across a cup of coffee. I think when they play piano in coffee houses, it’s the sound of blowing the steam across a cup of tea. And I think when singers sing slowly in coffee houses, it’s the music of people sitting on chairs before they even touch the cushion. And I think when they play piano in the lobby of hospitals, it’s the sound of a patient laying his head down on a pillow before it even touches. And music is just the sound of everything that happens before things touch.

Noise is the music of things when they collide very softly.

Loud is the music of the things that touch very rapidly and forcefully.

And all music is to be loved and to be liked, no matter who or what plays this music or sings it, because you have to listen to how it wraps you in strings of unwound notes. And everything that is hit by the music is wrapped in wires of things your ears can see. And all sound eventually covers the earth in a massive embrace of vines you can feel with the eyes in your roots.

And this is how I see around everything.

I can see in everything, and see around everything, every time I am in the very middle of the quiet. I just feel a map of roots and vines and I know that everything is just there.

Like a universal network of potatoes and vines mapping out the world with their eyes.

I’m not very good with words.

But I like talking.

I like talking because I can feel everything around me. I can see inside and through everything, I can see around everything. I can feel them with the eyes of my fingers, and I can hear them with the eyes of the sounds. I knew what the things in my room were, and I knew exactly where they are. But I can’t feel me. I can feel around me, but I can’t feel inside me. I can’t grow roots into myself.

I tried to touch my skin, and I tried to feel my cheekbones, and the empty spaces on my scalp wherever there wasn’t hair. I tried to feel my lips, and I tried to feel my arms with my lips. I tried to feel my lips with my arm. I tried to feel into my knee, I tried to hear into my palms.

I knew that around me was everything.

And I knew exactly where they were.

But I couldn’t find myself. I was lost in the middle of the quiet.

My fingers felt a body. My body felt a body. The floor must have felt a body, but I—I, the I as in me, not the I as in my body me, just the I—I couldn’t feel my body. I didn’t know where I was, even though I knew I was in the middle of the quiet. I was sure I was there. But where there? I didn’t know. I couldn’t feel myself. I couldn’t feel inside me. There was nothing in me, but everything else was around me.

There are senses in our body that are additional to the basic senses we commonly know of. Sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste are too few to experience the world with. There is the sense of gravity, sense of where things are in relation to yourself, and, among other senses, the sense that you are there. It’s called proprioception, and it’s the sense that tells you exactly where your parts are, even when all the other senses fail you. You can touch your nose with your fingertip, even if you can’t see it. I certainly could. And I knew where my finger was, and I knew it was there. And I knew where my nose was. So like all the things I could feel around me that I knew was there, I knew where my parts were, and I knew I was there.

But there’s an occurrence called a ghost leg, when a man who has been amputated sometimes can still feel his leg there. He can feel it itch. He can feel himself wiggling his missing toes. He can feel the extra weight of leg on the socket of a knee. He can feel his ankles. He can feel something and the brain believes that it is there, even when it isn’t. Even when the brain can’t see it anymore, it thinks it’s still there. And it itches.

And I believed that I was born blind because mother didn’t want me to watch her die, or see sad people and sad things.

What if I were blind because I was never even there? What if my brain just believes that I still have fingertips, that I still have a nose to touch, or ears to hear vines with? What if my brain just believes that my body is there, even when it isn’t? What if my brain just believes that it’s a brain and it can think? What if my brain just believes?

What if I was a potato that believed to have a brain?

Maybe I can’t see things because I can’t.

Maybe I can’t see things because I wasn’t anywhere at all. Maybe I wasn’t in the middle of the quiet, and maybe I wasn’t inside of me.

So I tried finding what was inside me, and where I was inside of my body. I scratched through my skin and tried to look for myself, and I tried to scratch into my chest. I tried to peel off the skin. I tried to dig into myself, and when I couldn’t anymore, I tried to squeeze myself out. I tried to squeeze myself in a tight hug; I tried to squeeze myself out from my throat. There was nothing. And there wasn’t even a black hole inside to eat me up. There was just nothing in me. I couldn’t find myself, and I thought that maybe there was nothing. Maybe I wasn’t there. Maybe everything is around me except me.

I knew where the walls were, and I tried to make the walls feel me. I tried to make my desk feel me. I tried to make the slate of thin floor polish feel that I’m there. I tried to get things to cover me in their roots, and see me. But nothing could see me, and I was nowhere in the middle of everything. And everything was in the middle of the quiet.

You are alone when there is only you, and nothing else around you.

You are lonely, when there is everything around you, but you aren’t there.

And that is why I like to talk.

Because as soon as I’d stopped moving and fidgeting and scratching, and trying to get the walls to feel that I am there, when all was still, I suddenly felt the sharp pain of citrus fire running up and down my arms and legs, where I had scratched myself. I didn’t cry. I screamed.

It was a scream that was full and the sound killed all the vines around me. It was a sound that traveled through me, inside me, around me, and burned me in the cold of my own sound. It was me, and I had found myself within my body.

And the moment I could feel myself, I could never let go of who or where I am ever again.

I could never stop talking.

I like talking, even when I’m all alone.

I talk so I don’t feel so lonely.

All I ever really wanted to have in this world was a fully empty blank space occupied only with everything. And I don’t think anyone could give that to me. So while I can’t have it, I will enjoy the pleasure of not having it. And if I will never be able to have it, then I would be happy that I have always wanted it. Because it is the only thing I could want.

I want something to want. I think the world is fairly ideal.

Seventeenth of August, Year Two Thousand and Ten.

My name is Robert.

Or, hi. I’m Rob.

Actually, I don’t know how to start this thing. Words were never exactly my strength. And speaking isn’t something I do often, or at all. Don’t get me wrong. I think words are beautiful things. And I always want to say about half a thousand things. And there are just so many things, you know? So many beautiful things that I just have to say. But I can never say them. But I think words are beautiful. Do you see the curves of the letters, the spaces in between them? Sometimes, a word doesn’t have to mean anything good, or mean anything at all to be beautiful. It just needs to be a word.

I’m not making sense.

What I mean to say is that we always seem to be filled up with things to say. No one can make the world shut up, ever. There will always be words, no matter what we do. The cafeterias in every school will always be filled with chatter. I’d like to think that the purpose of human existence is to express everything, to get everything you want to let out get out of you. Expression is the most basic form of contribution to society, and man was built for other people. Life is about saying things. And the way you say them is your contribution. Some people say, “I want to reach the sky!” by learning physics and building the biggest, tallest buildings as engineers. Other people say, “I want you to understand something beautiful” and they become teachers and educators. Then there are people who say, “I want to find out things about the world we didn’t know before!” and they go on to become scientists.

But me and my people, if they could ever be my people—I like the concept of “owning” people, that certain bodies and personalities are “yours” by association—want to say, “life is everything; death is everything; everything is everything” by doing everything to show what everything means. We paint, we draw, we sculpt, we dance, we take pictures, we compose and create music, we write. They also sing and act, but I can’t because I don’t have the words.

Well, I have the words. But I can’t give them out to the world in all the ways that most people do, and I couldn’t contribute them to society or let them get out to the world like most people do, because I can’t.

I am mute.

Not by choice. I’m just really born this way. And they said that when I was born, they worried because they heard no cries. But I was moving, then they saw my tears, and heard the way I cried, which was like choking and coughing, or getting lots of air out through your throat, but without the razor thin sound of a pressured voice. And I know this sound, because I have tried to cry very loudly once before in my life. Only once. And that was the sound that I heard, so I’m guessing that was the sound they heard when they realized I was alive.

I wonder why babies don’t laugh instead when they get out of their mothers’ wombs. Everyone in the delivery room is always happy to hear a baby cry, and they’re worried if it doesn’t because it means it’s dead. Shouldn’t you be more worried to hear someone cry? And wouldn’t a baby want to laugh and be happy that hey! I’m finally out of that cramped old place. I’m tired of drinking your nutritious body juices, ma! I want to taste milk, then mushed apples until I can chew my way to the cookie jar! And these colors are pretty, and hahaha, you guys are looking at me all stupid. Hey dad, stop crying, you big softy! I’m alive! Be happy with me. Come on, laugh!

And I just really think babies should laugh instead of cry.

But of course, when you grow up, you realize that pain and tears and all that wailing are the sounds of life. Sometimes you need to feel the pain of life to know that it’s still there. Pinch yourself to know you’re not dreaming. So maybe it’s happier when we die, and laughter is the sound of a true death, because it pushes back the pain, thereby denying the proof of your existence.

But I’ve always laughed, and I loved laughing, and smiling, and showing the rest of the world that life is everything, and that everything is everything. I’ve only ever really cried once in my life, and that was the day that I knew that I wanted to become an artist.

I was five back then, and I was alone, like I usually am. I had playmates, but only for things like when we played tag out on the street. But I was mostly alone, not because I liked it, but because I couldn’t talk to kids. Some of them get used to me being quiet, but it’s difficult to just be there around people and not tell them anything. I could write things down, but in the middle of games, they’d take time. And a lot of kids can’t read very fast or all too well at age five. Because. It was age five. I can’t signal much of anything because not all kids can understand sign language, especially when their vocabulary hasn’t fully developed yet. It’s hard trying to grasp one language and learn your words, and harder to learn what they mean in another language being in a country like ours. But to learn words by the way someone moves their hands would be an additional difficulty. I couldn’t talk to other kids simply because nobody understood me. So if not for running around playing games, I’d be alone. Like I usually am.

My mother taught me to write at a very early age. She knew that I’d need them more than most people do, because most people don’t have the difficulty of expressing things like I do. She told me that while I couldn’t understand words yet, she prepared to teach me by taking sign language classes. By the time I was two, she suddenly sat me down and gave me a fat crayon. And I looked at her in inquisition.

“Mama. M-A-M-A. Mama.” She pointed at herself.

I looked at her rather weirdly, because it was weird to talk that way to your kid. And maybe I thought to myself back then that should I ever need to teach my kids how to use words, I wouldn’t do it in the same way.

“Em. MMMM.” She wrote the letter. Then she did the same for the letter A. Then she wrote them together and pronounced, “MA.” Then she wrote out MAMA and pronounced everything slowly.

And I just looked at her. What the hell are you trying to do, ma? Maybe that’s what I’d say.

And then she put a crayon in my hand, and repeated the demonstration, except with her trying to get me to write it. Then there was DAD. And after Mama and Dad, that was the time when I learned the alphabet. And on every day, she’d try to get me to write something. I’d learn a new word, I write it down with her. And if I wanted something, I had to learn the word for it and write it down. I had a lot of story books with big, colorful pictures and simple words and short sentences. We would read together, and she’d ask me to copy some of the things written down. At first, I didn’t understand what we were reading or what I was writing. But I did grow to understand them, until the books and the words became my friends. If I wanted something and I still didn’t know how to write it down, I’d look for a book that either had that word or picture, and show it to someone to get the point across.

So on this particular day when I was alone, like I usually am, I was seated with a box of crayons and a coloring book where I was coloring in a flower. I hated coloring books. I couldn’t stay in the damn lines.

I think I was trying to describe the flower I saw. I think I said it was pink, or that it had five petals, or it was pretty. But I knew those words weren’t enough. I don’t know what I wanted to say about the flower. I think I wanted to say about a billion things. Maybe more. Maybe I wanted to say that the flower was lonely, because it was too beautiful and it was very sad to be incomparably high standard from everything else. Maybe I wanted to say that the ruffled petals remind me of the edges of cabbages, and the shade of pink was like a sunset in a meadow with plenty of clouds. But I didn’t know the words. Better to say that I didn’t have the words at all.

There were no words.

“No words.” I tried to mouth them out, but like usual, there were no sounds, except the sound of breath trying to escape, and the click of the tongue when it finishes. I tried to shout it out, but nothing. I tried to describe the shape of the petals by making sounds with my fingers rubbing on the coloring book paper. Round and round, rough but soft. I tried to describe skin by the sound of skin, and rubbed my lap, then my arms. I wanted to say that the wall was big and hard. I wanted to describe the wall, so I ran up to it, and tried to scream the words big, hard wall, and to substitute for the sounds my voice couldn’t make, I banged on the wall with my fists, or my palms. I ran up against it and kept on hitting the wall with my shoulders. I wanted to describe what glass was like. I had learned the word glass only a few days before then. And I couldn’t say out loud that it was see through. I couldn’t say it was fragile because I haven’t even learned that word yet that time. But I wanted to say that it was easy to break, and that glass can cry—glass can cry but I can’t, because I can’t make the sound of crying. And I wanted to make the glass cry because that’s what it was, and that what it does, so I took the glass where my big sister’s milk had been, the one with cookie crumbs still sitting at the bottom of it—we always so easily forgot to take the dishes and the cups back to the kitchen—and I threw it to the hard wall and watched the glass shatter into tears.

There were so many sounds. So many things I wanted to say that words couldn’t keep up with me anymore.

So I kicked and flailed my arms, trying to describe what kicking is by trying to make it sound like anything. I wanted to describe air. But at age five, you only know the word “air”. And you know that it’s the thing that comes out when you stand in front of a fan. But you don’t know how to say that it was quiet or whispering or transparent or wavy or ominous or everywhere. You don’t know what to say, and I definitely didn’t back then. So I wanted to describe the air by seeing what it would do, or what sounds it would make, if I kept hitting the air. Or if I kept throwing things at it.

My sister was nine back then. She came running back to my room with a half-eaten cookie in her hand. She dropped it, and it crumbled down on the toys and other things I threw on the floor. She ran for me, took me by the wrists. I struggled, and tried to keep screaming without sound. My silent shouts turned into chokes and coughs and the sound of tears rolling down a cheek. I tried to keep kicking. I wanted to describe my sister by hitting her. I wanted to say that I wanted her to let go of me. I also wanted to say that I needed someone to hold me close. I wanted to say that the world fell apart. I wanted to say what a world falling apart would be like if it were real.

“Mom! Quickly! Get  up here!” She called out.

And mom ran over and picked me up and carried me away. For the woman to teach me words, she didn’t use them very often, and was quite soft-spoken and gentle. And she was quiet. I could watch her quietly cook or clean around the house. And she never scolded. If not for her musical laughter, you’d possibly think that she’s mute too and all of this is a genetic disorder.

But it isn’t. She used her words when they were needed.

She had me sit down at the kitchen table, where there was a colander filled with wet vegetables. Mom tried to rub my back or pat my head. She gave me a cup of water, still with the sip-lid on, and tried to calm me down. She wiped my tears. And when they didn’t come anymore, she kissed my hair and went back to peeling the strings off of the celery. She never said anything, not a “there, there” or a scolding. Maybe she knew that my pain came from the silence. Maybe she wanted to tell me that sometimes, silence is a good thing. It certainly felt that way.

I stayed by her side and watched her peel. But I kept on looking at the colander of vegetables. I wanted to say things like, green, water, leaf, crunch. I wanted to describe them further but couldn’t. Again, there were no words. And I started to cry, but now with sniffles, and a lot less violently.

She got up and carried me with her to my sister’s room.

“Vanessa sweetie, could we borrow your box of crayons, please?”

“But Robby broke his crayons!”

“And some of your drawing paper. Bring them to the kitchen for me, thank you.”

“But mom!”

But mom already turned around and walked down the stairs, still carrying me. “Thank you!” was her reply.

She sat me back down, and I waited in the sweet silence of my mother’s breath and the sound of the zip, zip, zipping celery, until I heard my sister’s footsteps add into the orchestra as she came down with her crayons and some paper.

“If you break my stuff, I will eat all your cookies!” She looked at me, put down the crayons, and walked away.

“Thank you!” Mom said, in the same comical tone she had earlier.

She didn’t tell me what to do with the crayons, so I thought I was practicing the alphabet again. I wrote down the letter A over and over again. Then again in lower case. And then at the back of the page, I didn’t know what to do, so I wrote down SORRY and showed it to my mother.

She kissed me on the forehead, and said, “Is that how you really feel?”

I nodded in reply, and looked at her quizzically. But then I looked at the paper again. And maybe, no, that wasn’t what I was trying to say. So I took a different crayon. I took a black one, and I started to draw messy circles on the page. Then I took a blue one, and scribbled waves through the thick, messy round holes. That must be what I felt like, like black holes trying to calm down with soft waves. And then I showed her.

“I forgive you. It’s going to be okay.” She gave me that reassuring smile, and I thought I’d like to see more of it. “Why were you throwing your things? How were you feeling?”

I’m feeling as if these words are inadequate, and my body is too small to contain the things I want to express. I’m feeling helpless. I want to speak! I want to say things! I want to eat a dictionary and spit out the meaning of everything! I FEEL LIKE THERE AREN’T ENOUGH COLORS IN THIS BOX. MY BOX HAD ONLY EIGHT CRAYONS. MY SISTER’S WAS TWENTY-FOUR, BUT THEY WEREN’T EVEN ENOUGH. THESE CRAYONS CAN’T SAY HOW I FEEL. I NEED MORE CRAYONS.

And when I realized what I was doing, I was already smashing all the crayons into the paper, and my mother was trying to hold me back.

And my sister just came down to get a juice box from the fridge. And then she saw me ruin her crayons.

Needless to say, nobody had a cookie that entire month. Punishment. When that month ended, it was already my sixth birthday, and my sister gave me a jar of cookies she and mom baked. And I was so happy about the cookies that I had to draw something just to say how sweet they were and how much I missed the taste. Okay, when you’re six, all you think about is, “I’m happy, thank you for the cookies. I missed eating them.” But you get what I mean.

And all the drawings, we kept on the fridge with magnets. And when the fridge was full, my bedroom wall. And when my wall was full, we took them down and kept them in books. I didn’t stop learning about words, though. I had to write every day, and learn more. And I wanted to learn more that time. So my mother bought me more books, and she bought me more crayons. And she bought me different kinds of paint. And pencils of different colors. And charcoal and ink pens and everything.

Now, I’m kind of where I want to be. I’m in art school, and I’m with people who talk a lot but get what I’m trying to say even when I don’t. It’s a nice feeling to be surrounded by people who think like me, but don’t think like me, or like anyone at all. It’s nice to be in a place where my people—people I am associated with—are not limited to words when we try to express that life is everything, death is everything and everything is everything.

So in the long and short of it all, what I really wanted to say was:

Hi, my name is Rob. I am mute. Everything is everything.