i stutter.

Version my girlfriend edited

I stutter.

I wish I had my mouth sewn shut with steel wire. I don't want to speak and that makes me want to do it more. Dad always said to visualize my words. 

    ‘Speak clearly and precisely’ he’d said but I just couldn't. It feels like when I speak something picks me up and shakes me and my words up and down and crashes them together into a stutter. I speak as little as I can and I mostly gesture, nod and what have you, Mhm and point. My work doesn't require much in the way of speech, a dishwasher doesn't need to talk. I don't care about what they say around me either and the contents of their conversations but sometimes I want to butt in, not even to add anything, I just want to throw in a word or a mangled sentence into their conversation like throwing a spanner into the works of a big machine. Just because I shouldn't. It's like when I stand next to a cliff or on top of something tall and want to jump off but fear bolts me to the ground, solid like a tree trunk but the want is still there for whatever reason. 

It's near the end of the night now and I feel relief massage me. I want nothing more than to lock myself away from everyone here, they all scare me. My speech can do me harm. The big blonde girl from out front of the restaurant comes in through the kitchen door with a tray in one arm packed with drinks for all the kitchen staff. I see her eying me. She wears a big smile on her face but her eyes wear something else. Curiosity. She wants to hear my voice. 

     She finally comes to me and says ‘You can have something other than soda, you know Big Jake?’ She puts the soda close to me on the side. She always says something similar, something framed as a question to try and coax words out of me. It feels like a trap. She is waiting for my tongue to go past my teeth so she can pinch it between her fingers and present it to The Man. 

    ‘I hold the evidence between my fingers!’ She’ll say to The Man: judge, jury and executioner.

    ‘The Tong has infected him! They have made him Other, We can not have him infect us, we can not have him make us Other!’ 

I look to the floor and nod. I'm by far the biggest person here and must look odd to all of the pretty girls out front, a silent fifty six year old brown skinned giant. The blonde girl smiles and walks through the kitchen door and I'm scared she's saying something like I couldn't get Big Jake to talk this time. And the other pretty girls will say something like maybe next time, if we hound him enough he’ll make a peep. They'll look at each other and nod in agreement, big teeth smiles across their pretty faces. Then The Man can take him away never to be seen ever again.  

    My manager comes to me; a tiny little woman, she touches my arm and says ‘good work tonight Jake, i’ll see you tomorrow.’ I smile and nod to her too, my stutter clawing at the back of my throat wishing to be free. I trust my manger shes always been good to me, I just don't want anyone else hearing. It's dangerous to be as I am now. I drink my soda, it's nice and cool and it feels like the bubbles tickle the stutter a little, soothing it out somewhat. I breathe in and out, I finish up what I was doing and I begin to exit out of the back of the restaurant. After I put a single foot outside of the back door I hear a conversation that isn't meant for me. 

    I hear the new boy say ‘What's up with Big Jake?’ almost laughing as he says it. I step back and turn my head to listen 

    ‘Jake? He just likes being quiet, don't mind him.’ I think that the head chef's response is the end of the discussion. I want to sigh out loud but I'm afraid they'll hear me. I'm only around the corner next to some big pots and pans. 

    ‘He’s not a Raboid is he?’ says the new boy. Raboid. The word slaps fear into me like when you cross the road in your own little world and realise that a car is fast approaching and it aint going to stop for you and your own little world.  Then fear pulls you out of your mind and across the road.