The Unknown Universe of Drafts

Soundless Voice

The boy watched the world with mild fascination as the people sauntered around him, lights a blur as cars raced with incredible speed and flurry. Everything was too bright; too blinding he thought the light would burn the sockets out of his eyes. He squinted at every person who walked passed him, the women in their fashion-designer outfits and the men in their business suits and cases. He wondered what would it be like to be one of them.

The boy stood in the middle of the city square. The twilight sky above him was a faint pink and orange. He was a normal, little boy, but he was not as normal as he looked to be. His hair seemed a tad unkempt and his clothing consists of an overly-large blue shirt with contrasting orange baggy trouser pants. He wore sandals, each of a different colour - black and white.

There was a flash and a sentence caught his eye, and he swirled around. He stared at the store sign for a moment, as if he had just seen something on the floor and wanted to examine it through a microscope. Then, he cocked his head to the side and strolled up to it calmly, eyes never leaving the sign. He stared at it with childlike curiousity. "Y-Youu.. ca...?" he mumbled out, words slightly slurring as his eyes strained to read the words on the sign.

Just for a moment, he stood there, silently contemplating the phrasing above the clothes store. Then, if not a second later, he walked away.

~

At school, he stood in the shadows behind the cover of a large apple tree. He noticed that the bark was large enough to conceal his tiny frame from the eyes of many curious on-lookers. There, he could sit on the freshly-cut grass patch as he pretended to flip through thick, ancient books of Shakespeare's Literature. He couldn't read a word of course, for he was fated to live with the curse of dyslexia. But he couldn't let them know, couldn't let her know. They would reject him, ostracise him out of the cruel world of society.

And then, she would know.

He knew that the world is a hard place to live in, and he knew that if one couldn't read or write, they would immediately be thrown out, for they were as useless as a piece of broken toy. The boy knew that he was being negative, but what other choice did he have? Back then, he was so sure that he would grow out of his dyslexia, but ten years had passed and he still had the same problem with words. And that, he realised, had grown even worse when he found his first crush.The girl he knew was unlike any masterpiece in an art gallery, she was perfect - rich, good grades, good looks, and good friends. None that he'd ever had.

"What is your name?" the girl once asked when they were younger. Elementary school perhaps was the time period. However, back then, he couldn't even speak. Fabian, he wanted to cry out, but his mouth wouldn't obey his command. His tongue was dry - parched. And he could only stare at her as she waited patiently for his reply.

"I-I..." he tried to voice out, hands all over the place, not knowing where to put them. He could feel everyone behind him, their judging stares burning deep on his back. He shifted from one foot to another, his fingers fidgeting as he rubbed his nose occasionally to distract himself from the pressure of being watched with the most popular girl of the pack.

"I'm Sylvette." The girl pulled out her hand and he looked down, not knowing how to respond in such situations. "But Mummy calls me Sylver. I haven't seen you around these parts. Are you new here?" No, he was not. "That book... It's Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, isn't it?" The boy nodded shyly as he handed her the book., and when his fingertips brushed against her's, his face went a terrible, rose red. One he was sure he would get laughed at.

"What is the story about?" The girl, Sylvette, asked. The boy watched her flipped the hardcover of the book open, her brown eyes scanning through the pages.

It's about a boy and a girl, where two worlds clashes into one, he wanted to say. Where sacrifices are needed to achieve the impossible and betrayal is not a sin... Where words simply meant nothing...

The boy stared at the girl, who seemed bored after reading a few, countless pages. Her eyes squinted as she tried to decipher the legendary words of Shakespeare's language and what they actually meant. The boy counted to ten. She handed him the book back. "I hate this book," she simply said. "It's boring. There aren't any pictures at all. It's all wordy and lengthy. How can you actually read this?"

The boy shrugged. It helped pass the time.

There was a car honk and the girl swirled around. Then, she turned back to him, books in hand. "I'm gonna go now. Mummy's callin' me. Bye!" She waved and dashed off. The boy looked at her as her tiny body climbed into the black car, bright, colourful clothes a harsh contrast to the dark metal.

As the boy watched as the car drove off the road, he stood there wondering what would it actually be like to be able to speak so carefree.

Maybe there was something wrong with him. A malfunction in his brain which doesn't allow his tongue to dance and voice to speak, for his mouth to open and for his lips to move fluently.Or perhaps, he was just being careful.