Work Text:
You are still in there, watching through a thick wavy layer of glass, as your body performs things. Presses buttons on a plane, robotically enters into a shower, places a wig on your head. You can hear whatever is inside with you whispering, at least it sounds like a whisper. Some thick chattery frequency rolls around your temples like borscht soup falling from a spoon. You do not care, at least at first. You are floating in an empty space behind your eyes, numb. It’s comparable to happiness so that’s what you believe it is.
Until you meet some woman you don’t know. You travel to a warm place. Bright. Sunny. Beautiful. Something you’ve seen in movies. Perhaps Los Angeles? The words fly across the soup of your limited thoughts. You always wanted to visit America. You had family there. Some distant cousins that once sent you a GameCube. The sound lessens a bit, allows you the memory to sink into as your body walks up the road. You’re holding something cold. A bottle of water. You don’t care, not until she comes in.
She’s beautiful. She’s trying to dig a hole. A body wrapped in a blanket is beside her. You notice these three things before the frequency smothers you back into sweetness. But a feeling works its way up despite it. Your first feeling since the sound came into your head. Curiosity. She’s not one of you. One of them. One of the sound, the noise. There’s no sounds elbowing into your head. She’s silent.
Silent. You are buried under waves of sounds but she is quiet. Quiet. She doesn’t give off any waves of sound. Just quiet.
You catch on it. Start to think, slowly, forming thoughts the way your father formed pierogi. Folding in on itself, carefully entrapping the idea within. The noise rustles, disrupting it, and you sink back into the daze.
She speaks to you. Your body speaks back. It’s in English. You only know a handful of English words. You chose to learn German instead, English was too hard. You catch bits. Her name’s Carol. The sound knows her name. She dumps the bottle of water out and hands it back to you. Your body starts to leave. It’s okay. The frequency washes back over you like a wave. You sink back into that comfortable rut, the place in which you rested—
But no— there’s a yell. She— Carol, the quiet lady, she’s saying something to you. Your body stops. Turns around, and you see her sweat soaked face, her hair clumping up like yours did, her eyes confused desperate tired. She was digging a grave, the knowledge comes like thunder from the sound. A grave for her wife.
You do not know how to feel about that fact. Either that America allows same sex couples or that this woman loved another woman. Luckily, she runs back into the house, and for a few minutes it’s just you and the noise. The whispering ever restless noise. It’s wondering if this will work, if she’s figured it out. What you do not know, but the curiosity comes back, fighting its way up. Why is she not like you? It’s not clear, but she gives you a respite, and that’s enough. Enough. Enough to remember your name, where you came from.
But when she comes back out she’s holding a book. Something’s on the cover, a man and a woman. The man has dark hair like yours. She holds it up, and you gaze into her confused exhausted face. You register the wig itches. It’s a new sensation, something you have been starved for. A slight chink in the noise.
She says something. Your mouth says something back. Back and forth. What remains of you shifts. Something is forming on the woman’s face, anger. Anger. It hits you like cold water and you are reminded.
You don’t want to be here. The thought comes to you. You don’t want this in your head. You don’t want to be drowned out by this fucking noise, this screaming cacophony of alien music that pushes you down and away. Your limbs start to tremble.
The frequency halts for one sparkling second and your muscles twang tight like a string and you surge up towards the light and you almost get control of your mouth to ask her to tell her to yell at her back who are you what are you doing here take me home take me home to my family I’m drowning please help me I’ve been asleep for so long and numbed into happiness help help me I need to cry I need to scream I need to make vocalizations again I need to feel my larynx vibrate with noises I make I need to feel my own thoughts in my head I need to choose I need to feel I need to have a skin to to live in I need to be ZOSIA AGAIN I NEED TO BE ALONE IN HERE I AM ZOSIA I AM ZOSIA BOLEWISKA PLEASE HELP ME—
The noise screams back, a wave of warm numbing blood, crushing throbbing hurting shoving you back down under a crossfaded blanket. It’s sort of like being drunk, that’s the last thought you have, the one that you remember for a fleeting second when it first set in, the noise is like being drunk. So happy and mellowed and connected yet—
Not you. Never you.
Your body stands up from the ground. Gets in the car. Leaves. You do not know if you will see Carol again. You no longer care.
You’re pushed back into your rut, your place where you live. Your thoughts dripped to you like bits of bigos. Something akin to happiness. No friction. No anger to your mind. You sink, and assume you are happy. Happy.
Happy.
Yet when the sound shifts again, with joy, with brutal happiness, the frequencies saying that Carol asked for her pirate lady back, you feel something akin to—
Relief.