Fall In Love by Slum Village
Glendale, AZ
Wednesday January 21st
Samir Cadaver | Sage
Samir put on his boxing gloves all whilst his eyes scrutinised the woman across the gym.
She was here again, she didn't come yesterday. Samir didn't like that, it wasn't the same without her even though he didn't feel like something was missing before she joined the gym.
Samir felt lonely even though they never speak. He felt like he was missing something, he still did now.
Samir wanted to be friends with her, he wanted a friendship to just randomly sprout. He didn't understand why it was so hard, he didn't get why she wouldn't just speak to him. He wanted to talk to her, he wanted to be around her, he wanted to hold her in his arms but he couldn't.
His thoughts were making him angry, he began pounding his fists into the punch bag. His pupils were dilating as he began getting angrier and angrier with himself thinking about his inability to communicate with her.
"Yo, you good sage?" Another gym member walked over to Samir noticing how he was furiously punching the sack of sand. At the disruption Mindy looked over at a very extremely angry Samir, she'd only ever seen the man composed and stoic he looked like he was out for blood.
With one final punch he split the bag and all the molecules of sand pooled out. Samir gritted his teeth and began walking away from the mess in embarrassment.
"W-what should we do?" The intruder asked Mindy who had come to access the situation.
"I'll go check him out." Mindy jogged after Samir who was pacing down the hallway, an angry expression etched across his face.
He was angry, an emotion very rare to him.
"Hey wait up!" Samir stopped in his tracks, he didn't know why but it was like he was stuck: immobile. He turned around slowly to see a 5'4 tiny figure approach him. She came up to about his moob, "what happened back there? And damn you can walk fast." Her voice sad just as soft as he anticipated it to be.
It sounded like a waterfall but like a pretty calm waterfall. It sounded beautiful.
"Hello, you deaf?" Mindy asked as she looked up at the large man, "um my ASL isn't that good but." Mindy looked down at her hands and began doing some movements she could remember from middle school.
Samir did know ASL however he wasn't deaf, he's been learning it since elementary. That's around the time he stopped talking, it wasn't like an automatic thing one day he spoke the next he didn't. It was gradual: it was a period of about four months. A lot had been going on in his life, every time he spoke his words were just becoming less and less important and he was becoming more and more ignored. He stopped caring, it stopped mattering and eventually he just lost his voice. He had no need for it and so he never used it. Not even when he was alone, not even to his bestfriends. Nobody heard him speak again, he spoke with gestures but even that soon stopped.
Soraya noticed this transition and decided he should be enrolled into ASL classes, it was their little secret. They did it often together so they could communicate with one another but as Samir got older Soraya had him go to the classes on his own. Now it's like a second language to him.
"Okay I haven't done it in a while so don't hate me." Samir presumes she was trying to say 'are you okay?' but instead she said 'in two countries'.
Samir signed back 'I'm not deaf' and it confused her even more, Samir thought her perplexed expression was extremely cute. Her brows were all furrowed and her bottom lip jutted out.
"I-I'm sorry, my sign language really isn't all that good. I don't know what you said."
"He's not deaf, babygirl." A passerby said, "he's mute." they added.
"Oh." Mindy felt stupid, "my names Mindy, what's yours?" Mindy held her hand out and although Samir didn't like skin to skin contact or just touching people in general he'd anticipated this moment. He'd been waiting for the chance to touch her smooth skin. Samir took hold of Mindy's hand and shook it back and forth, she liked the way his hand enveloped hers and Samir liked the way her hand was so small compared to hers. It fit amazingly.
Samir pulled his hand back since he couldn't continue anymore.
"Girl you can't hear I said he's not deaf." The same passerby said, "he's mute baby meaning he doesn't talk." They repeated.
"Oh sorry, I'm stupid." Mindy said with a dry chuckle, "you seemed very angry back there. Do you want to spar? I don't think I could cause much damage to you but I could help you get whatever it was off your chest." Samir felt completely calm now just having Mindy in his presence.
He shook his head back and forth wanting to speak so badly but he couldn't, he wanted to tell her it was alright and not to worry but he was unable to.
Just like Samir had been waiting for the day he'd get the chance to talk to Mindy she'd been waiting to talk to him too.
"Do you maybe want to get out of here then? You look familiar, maybe we can catch up and talk." Samir blinked and looked at Mindy long and hard.
When he finally came to realisation he couldn't believe he hadn't been able to see before, Mindy. Mindy Manor from the daycare.
