Curse of silence, p.10
Curse of Silence, page 10
But enough was enough on an island where she was torn apart from her mother, the only other human she had ever known. Being raised by wolves for so long, she knew she couldn’t continue living among them. All she wanted to do now was go to the person who gave her life and see what she had been missing out on all these years while living in isolation.
What a surprise it was going to be.
After decades of trying to engage in conversation with wild animals, she was desperate for some human communication with the outside world. But she knew the outside world would be more than she expected. Complete anarchy was possible. But she didn’t care. She needed a life that was more than just this.
***
That day finally came. While staring at the endless abyss, she was ecstatic. Finally, after so many years, she was going to reunite with her mother. She had been in Troft for so long that she thought this was all there was to the world, a life where she had to wrap her feet in fish skin to prevent frostbites.
Anything had to be better than this. Still, she wasn’t ready for a world that awaited her outside of this secluded island, the home she had grown familiar with.
Day after day, she waited until she was able to gather enough materials to construct herself a small boat to take up the shore. Now that she was finally ready, her anxiety of the unknown began to frighten her.
Will she recognize me? Will I be able to live amongst civilized humans without trying to maul them with an arrow? Will I be able to cope with their lifestyle? Things must be way different there. How will I survive?
Many questions began to course through Remy’s mind as she began packing up what little she had.
She didn’t belong here. She knew that now. It was time to go. This was her home, but this wasn’t her true home. Gathering her strength, she walked toward her boat.
Remy Kimora remembered how she endured thirty-two years of hell while she climbed in her shoddily-constructed wooden boat, awaiting a life that was hopefully better than this. She thought of the wolves she learned to love, letting her tears fall from her eyes.
Before she departed, she set fire to her home as one final gesture that she would be gone for good. Pushing her boat off shore with an oar that gave her splinters, she headed north, up the Atlantic Ocean, saying her farewells to the land of no return.
As she passed Argentina and up toward the Caribbean Islands, Remy smiled at the thought of reuniting with her mother, having her hold her in her arms like she used to when she was a baby. She didn’t know what would await her ninety-four days from now, but she was excited to find out.
***
Day after day during a freezing winter, Remy continued to row, seeing no sign of human life other than the several dead bodies she found floating near her. She wasn’t sure where they came from, but she imagined it was from the small island in the South Atlantic Ocean everyone referred to as “the island of death.”
At times during her brutal journey, wind scraping against her pale skin and rocks almost destroying her only form of protection from the icy cold water beneath her, she considered eating the bodies that she came across.
No, that would be too cannibalistic, wouldn’t it?
Sailing alone in the middle of the ocean was rough. If the harsh conditions didn’t destroy her, the mental challenge she had to face with herself definitely would. Whoever said living with yourself was easy never truly had to do it. Life alone and isolated threw her across cycles of emotions, from anger toward herself and the world to contemplating suicide.
Ninety-four long days later, she finally crossed the Gulf of Mexico and into Galveston Bay in the heart of Texas City. With barely two cents to her name and a lack of awareness of what currency even was, she realized her potential struggle to make it across several states into Colorado. Living in isolation truly made her different.
The port was surprisingly warm, and for the first time, she could see people, people who weren’t trying to kill or eat her. Attempting to get some help from strangers, she rushed over to a man lowering his sail. She lightly touched his shoulder, and as he turned around, she saw blood in his eyes and stitches over his mouth.
Shocked, Remy quickly backed away, tripping over her feet and falling as a sudden wave washed over the dock behind the man. She picked herself back up and ran away. Terrified by the world she just arrived in, she found a group of relatively normal-looking citizens. She quickly skipped over to them and asked if they could help her get to Boulder, Colorado.
However, when they turned around, all she could see were blank stares in their eyes, blank stares that looked up at her, back down at their phones, and back up toward her again. They remained so quiet that she could hear their breaths, gusts of air pushing in and out of their lungs.
“Excuse me. My name is Remy Kimora. I’m trying to find my mother in Boulder, Colorado. Can someone help me?” she asked the silent crowd.
However, she received no answer. There were over ten people in the crowd, and not a single one spoke. Sure, they acknowledged her; she wasn’t invisible. They just refused to speak. The people continued to remain silent, until one of the women in the group lifted her phone. On the screen, the word Hush appeared as the rest of the crowd placed their fingers over their lips and walked away.
Why aren’t they speaking? Is there something wrong with me? Don’t I speak their native tongue? she thought. Speaking is the most important aspect of human life; it’s how humans survived for so long, by communicating with each other for support and by communicating with their predators for survival.
Without speaking, it’s impossible to properly convey feelings and desires, something that can never be fully understood when read from a screen. Without speaking, what’s the difference between humans and inanimate objects? Sure, they can move, but their level of intelligence drops to the point where they might as well be dead. Her thoughts continued to argue with her.
Life became stranger when she was met with silence again at the William P. Lobby Airport in Houston. She had hoped to use pity and guilt to snag a free flight from one of the pilots.
However, when she arrived, hours later on very sore feet, the people there also refused to speak. Complete silence. There were no announcements of departing flights or gates. There was no one shouting out orders of food that were ready like what she had seen from the tapes that were stocked in the station back in Troft.
Everything seemed to operate based on a machine, with people receiving texts for every announcement a human used to do. It was a strange sight to behold, but at least, the once-busy airport seemed much less chaotic.
Everything around her was so much different than the bustling nation she had imagined. For better or worse, she wasn’t so sure yet. She observed as people received their boarding passes on their phones, as their phones vibrated when their food orders were ready, as they texted those sitting beside them, and as they faced machines at gate counters instead of attendants.
The only sounds she could hear were the constant clicking and tapping on the phones. Not even a whisper. Not even a murmur.
Remy lived in isolation for nearly twenty-seven years without human contact, and coming to a metropolitan city, it felt like she never left the unfruitful island. She still felt alone, despite being surrounded by people. Even when she tried to speak, ordering her coffee with her voice, she was turned away and given strange looks like she was an alien unable to abide by the rules of society.
Left and right, people refused to look up from their phones as if they had been sucked inside of them, sucked inside a piece of technology that was supposed to assist them, not absorb them. The people in line at the coffee shop refused to look up. They simply typed in their orders. The barista then prepared them and set them down on the counter, all without a single word spoken.
Some looked over at Remy like she truly was from out of town. They sensed that she was different, that she didn’t belong. It also didn’t help that she was wearing a shirt stitched from animal hide.
She needed to find someone to talk to, someone to help her find out where her mother was. Her hope fading, she plopped down on a vacant chair and stared off into the crowd.
How can this world even function? It doesn’t make any sense. What’s wrong with these people? Do all these people just hate me for some reason? I need answers, now!
Getting up from her seat, she watched as several passengers began to board their plane. Each and every one of them stared down at their phones, paying no attention to their surroundings. She watched the gate close automatically with a loud beeping sound, and she sighed as she watched the plane take off.
Turning back around, she noticed something on an empty seat.
Could this be one of those devices?
Remy picked it up, looked around to make sure no one saw her, and she shoved it into her pocket before running into the restroom. She flipped it open and saw a screen with numbers ranging from zero to nine.
This must be it! Maybe I can call my mom.
Digging into her pocket, she pulled out the note her mother had left her. It included a number to call if she ever made it out of Troft alive.
Hoping to God the number worked, she dialed it on the phone, the one and only number she had in her possession.
The phone rang. It rang several more times. But no one answered. Remy felt devastated and frustrated.
“That’s weird. Why won’t she answer her phone? Is this the wrong number? Did she change her number? This better not be a fake!” she whispered to herself.
Remy proceeded to call her mother eight more times, only to be met with silence. Panic began to send shivers down her spine.
Why isn’t she picking up? Did she forget about me already? Did she give me the wrong number? No, she wouldn’t do that to me. She couldn’t. She would never abandon her only daughter like that. This isn’t happening!
As thoughts of doubt and confusion rushed through her mind, she received a text message from the number her mother gave her.
Who’s this? Please do not call me. Never again. You can send me a text message if you want to talk. I only communicate through text messages. — Mom
The text message that popped up sent Remy’s mind on a loop.
“What?” Remy whispered louder. She was genuinely confused. “Why the hell not?”
Remy tapped on the phone, spending several minutes trying to figure out how to use it before finally sending a reply to her mother.
Mom, this is Remy. Why text? Why can’t I call? Mom, answer me. Why don’t you want to talk? It’s me, Mom, your daughter. Pick up the phone. I finally made it out of Troft, and all I want is to see you. Please answer, okay? — Remy
Remy anxiously texted back, proceeding to call her mother once more. As the phone rang, another text came through.
I said, no calling. — Mom
Typing a response back to her mother’s agitation, Remy leaned against a pillar at the airport and wondered what happened to the world, what happened to her mother.
What is going on here? Remy thought, desperately looking around for someone who would speak.
However, whenever she tried to approach someone with words, she was met with silence, a grim glare, and a point of a finger toward a sign that said Quiet. Even more concerned, she quickly bolted to the exit and out of the airport, looking for her mother who texted that she would be at the parking lot in sixteen hours to pick her up.
As she rushed out, she was met with the same incidences she had witnessed inside the airport: silence. This could not be normal.
“I want to know what the hell is happening. This is nothing like the books I’ve read about America. Where is the industrialized society I always dreamt about?” she said out loud.
Suddenly, a strange woman approached her and showed her a message on her phone.
You need to be quiet right now, or you’re going to be in big trouble.
Remy became more confused. She was finally able to interact with people, able to see someone who looked like her and without fur, but she felt more isolated here than she did back in Troft when it was just her and the barren land.
But maybe she was destined to be alone forever. Remy had lived a lonely life most of her life. It’s not like there were many opportunities to make friends and have romantic relationships while living in a barren wasteland. Her best friend was a wolf that eventually died because of old age, and the closest she had ever gotten with a living being was the hare she constructed into gloves.
But she didn’t care, did she? It’s not like she ever lived a life where she had something to compare hers with. Besides, it was all about survival, right? Survival was much more important than connection.
***
After spending the night inside the airport, Remy walked toward the parking lot the next morning, longing to reunite with her mother. She was hoping that maybe her phone was just malfunctioning, and she wasn’t able to call.
Her eyes teared upon seeing her mother from all the joy she was feeling. Even though Remy was mad that her mother had done nothing to contact her all these years, she ran up to give her a hug.
To her surprise, she didn’t receive a hug back. Her mother just looked at her without any sign of affection, refusing to talk or hold her hand. It was as if she didn’t feel what Remy was feeling at that moment.
Remy attempted several more times to get her mother to speak, but all her mother would do was point to her phone, not a single peep out of her mouth. Twenty-six, twenty-six long years without her mother, and she couldn’t even get a single word out of her. She had more conversations with a tree than her mother was giving her right now.
This isn’t right, Remy thought.
She had suffered enough alone in the wilderness; no way was society going to take those she loved away from her. No one bothered to explain what was happening. Her head was still full of questions.
“Mom! What the hell is going on? Speak to me! Say something. Please, I’m begging you.”
Despite how much Remy shouted, it didn’t take long for her to realize that she could only hear herself. Other than the wind blowing against the trees, her surroundings were silent. Cars didn’t honk like what she saw on the tapes she had watched, especially in crowded airports. Everyone was on their phones, but not a single sound out of any of them.
At first, she thought something was just wrong with her mother. There was, but the issue extended far beyond just her. Something seemed to be wrong with everyone. This strange phenomenon was something she couldn’t have predicted.
Was this a result of an illness, or did everyone in town just become walking computers? She didn’t even know where to begin to explain what she was looking at. Shouting over to some of the pedestrians passing by, Remy soon realized no one was going to answer back.
“Did everyone suddenly become mute? Am I going to get shot for speaking? Is Big Brother reigning upon us? Mom?” Remy leaned back, her eyes tearing even more.
Instead of the heartfelt and warm eyes she had hoped to be greeted with, she was met with a stone-cold face with eyes that continued to fixate down on a phone.
“Mom! What are you doing? I’m here! It’s me! Your daughter! Remy! Remember? I have so much to tell you. About Nala, Nala and her pups.”
Remy proceeded to repeat several more times as her mother still refused to acknowledge her.
Seconds later, her mother turned to her car, the cold air fogging up the windows, and robotically wrote, No talking, and I mean it. Your life depends on it.
Shocked and terrified, Remy stumbled back, tripping over her sack of clothing. She fell to the asphalt ground beneath her, scraping both her knees as she tripped over herself. Her mind completely froze. She could not believe what her mother had just written, so eerily creepy, so psychotic.
For Heaven’s sake, they were literally standing in front of each other. Why couldn’t she just fucking speak? God didn’t give her vocal cords so she could tie them with a shoelace.
“Mom, we’re standing right in front of each other!” Remy rolled her eyes, glaring at the strange woman she questioned was her mom.
Still no reply. The robotic woman in front of her still refused to speak; Remy was deprived of the motherly tone she had expected. Despite Remy getting noticeably agitated, demanding answers angrily out of the woman who gave her life, her mother continued to stare down at her phone, typing away like a college student, refusing to budge her head even as Remy tried to force it up.
But the blind look and hollow stare in her mother’s eyes shook through her, fear coursing through her veins as blood rushed rapidly throughout her body. Her mother turned back to the car window.
I said, do not. Do not do that again, ever. Do you understand me? Never again.
“Oh my god, Mom! We’re standing in front of each other! Why won’t you even look at me?” Remy asked, her voice cracking. “Everyone is like this! What’s going on, Mom? What happened? What’s wrong with you?”
Her palms began to sweat as Remy became more worried and frustrated.
No response as her mother continued to type away.
“Mom! Speak to me!” Remy shouted, her teeth gritting and her face red. “Why can’t you talk? Tell me what’s wrong! Please, just tell me.”
No reply. The only thing she could hear was her own grating voice, and nothing else. The world was silent. Too silent. Her mother turned toward the car one more time.
Get in the car. Get in the car right now. You are to text and nothing else.
Chapter Thirteen
A Strange New World
2010
The next morning, Remy woke up feeling relaxed and strangely out of place in her bed in Boulder. She had been stranded in a wooden hut for so long that she couldn’t adjust her body to sleep on something that wasn’t a wooden board, leaving her feeling uncomfortable for being comfortable. She hoped that the happenings yesterday were just a dream, a delusion from the isolation she had faced.
However, when she went downstairs to greet her mother, she was met with the same ominous feeling she had experienced the day before. Her mother could only text her responses back, asking her if she wanted breakfast through a phone rather than asking her in person, despite them both standing in the same room.
