Under the White Light

Chapter 1 : I'm Fluent in Silence

The song I used in this story is the English translation of 'Buwan', a Filipino song, by Juan Karlos Labajo.

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I'm yours, you're mine

"Who's that?" Sarawat calls out, placing his guitar carefully into its case. There is someone climbing up the steps behind him. It must be a man's footsteps, strides too heavy and much longer than that of a woman's, that halts at Sarawat's words at the edge of the stage. Judging from the time it takes for the acoustics of the concert hall to bounce the sounds back to his ears, it is an unfamiliar gait, so it couldn't have been any of the people he knows. They know better than to approach him without verbally announcing their presence first, anyway.

The classical guitarist closes the case and turns to greet his visitor.

"I'm sorry?" Sarawat says after a long pause, though he is certain the man hadn't spoken. "I didn't quite catch that."

And still, when Sarawat hears nothing from the man standing there, Sarawat begins to grow apprehensive. There are some shuffling noises in the general direction, and the guitarist wonders what he would do if the man turns out to be a madman of some sort here to murder him. His brother, Phukong, who had escorted him here is nowhere to be seen at the moment (though Sarawat hadn't seen him since he was sixteen years old), and he only has his guitar case to defend himself.

The rustling grows louder, more frenzied, and Sarawat picks his guitar up, clutching it warily to his chest. He remembers the layout of the stage well enough; he begins to edge away backwards, stepping over where he believes the equipment and wires are. The fear sharpens his senses and he soon recognises the scuffling sound as rustling of clothing, like when someone is removing them quickly, or searching through them. Either way, Sarawat does not believe that that is something for him to debate.

He repeats himself, voice gruff, and bolts from the stage, screaming. "I can't hear you!"

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He had lost his voice and didn't know how to find it again. The doctors all said that physically, he was marvellous, he was capable of speech, he should be able to speak, and so they sent him to psychiatrists. They, in turn, said that there was nothing wrong, he was capable of speaking, should be able to, blah, blah, blah. In the end, he had lost his voice, and all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't find Tine's voice again.

His friends believed differently, though. While the medical professionals continued to tackle the cause of the problem, his friends attempted to fix it in their various ways. Usually, 'attempted' meant that they would take him to a strange location that's filled with strange people, and then, suddenly disperse with all of his belongings, leaving a mute Tine at the mercy of a random crowd. Their attempts always ended badly, but Tine knew that they meant well. They thought that by forcing him to interact with people in different situations, his voice would miraculously be brought back.

It never did. Over a decade later, he's still voiceless.

Because once it ended with him having a panic attack in the middle of a busy intersection. When he was at the hospital later that day, he realised he was the butt of the joke, entertainment at his own expense for his friends. They just watched as he freaked the fuck out, right there on the road as he searched desperately for his 'friends' to help him.

From that day onwards, he told his friends to back off from his life and that he'll talk to them when he feels like it again.

Tine is able to retain his job for the simple reason of being a skilled data entry clerk (which essentially means he takes hand-written notes, documents, tables, and spreadsheets, and types them out in word processors and other systems to bring the data into a form suitable for a computer to process), it's boring and tedious as fuck but it's a non-verbal position, mostly. It pays the bills, that's what's important. But he knows, of course, no one wants to hire someone like him.