James got ready without speaking. He looked down at Nikola and thought: "good morning," then he apologized in his mind.
She heard none of it.
She lay there still, perfect, quiet. So quiet. Despite it all, just seeing her sleep in the silence of her own mind made James wish to get angry, but he couldn’t. He wouldn’t hold her silence against her. Her freedom to be silent. And to speak.
He was careful getting dressed for the day. All it took was a word. A single utterance. He'd stubbed his toe two days earlier and his agony grew tenfold.
Verbal communication and the noise would grow louder. That damned noise. He grimaced but held in the audible swear.
He'd been a man who talked to himself. He had often apologized to his coworkers for swearing at his monitor. That was another life, though. James didn't have any true coworkers anymore. He didn't swear anymore, either.
He dressed, and Nikola was still asleep.
It was ok. What did she have to wake for, anyway? They'd simply laid her off for what he had said. There was no pain for her. Just poor.
He ran the figures in his head like he had a dozen times already. With her out of work and his pay frozen, they'd survive these next weeks, barely, maybe the month if they ate light, but after that... James didn't want to think of after that.
There wouldn't be an after that.
They would be fine.
He was losing his shackles today. James smiled in his silence. The loud, ever present silence blaring in mind. He left their apartment and walked the seventeen flights of stairs down to the street. He was winded, but he couldn’t hear his own breathing. He couldn't hear anything but the noise.
James had never been a runner, but he had seen the physical geeks check their pulse on their wrist. He could feel his heart rate, and though he didn't know what numbers were good or bad, he figured faster was worse. Arrhythmic and fast, his heart fluttered and pounded with the rhythm of a punk band. A band he couldn't hear anymore. And that was before he had taken stairs.
The stress of the noise was the purpose, though. The punishment.
Outside in the cloudy day, James heard none of the world around him, none of the cars and trucks and people and trains in the city. He heard the noise, and it was at the same level it had been since he stubbed his toe. No louder. No quieter. If he spoke again, it would get worse.
But it went away today. He'd been good. He'd worked in the silent box they'd stuck him in. He'd worked without pay. Sure, he had been a Light-Traitor, in another world: a whistleblower. He had spoken out. But he had lost. He paid for his crime with silence.
James thought of Nikola. He'd paid for his crime in many ways other than silence.
Her loss was almost as great as his. After all, if one has no job, what is their purpose? She didn’t speak to him anymore. Not that he could not hear, that was true, but she said nothing to him, anyway. Her eyes spoke of the anger and the sadness she felt. James couldn’t deny the feelings. He deserved them. Their savings were gone. He’d done that. His stupid hopes for a better world and better country. Why hadn’t he thought of her? Of them? His thoughts once had been so loud. Not anymore.
White noise was all he heard. It was all he had heard for months now. Thank God for what their savings had been. If he hadn't been in the position to save, they would have been on the streets from the start. Weekly rent. Weekly taxes. Weekly bills and invoices and subscriptions. All mandatory. Then there was the food. And the water.
He shook his head through the noise. It never wavered. Never got quieter or louder. Never changed as he walked or shook or danced or slept. The noise was there. Always.
He should know. He'd been on the team next door to the inventors of it.
"HSS" were the letters adorning the front desk of the office James walked into. Janey at reception gave a sympathetic smile. She didn't speak to him. He had spoken to her that first day. An innocent "hello" had been the second ratchet in noise. She saw it happen on his face. She saw the confusion. The pain. She no longer spoke to James. She knew his punishment as well as the rest. Everyone did. A Light-Traitor was not arrested, but punished by society and the government. His image went up around the country and if you had missed that, your optical implants would highlight the “almost-enemy” of the state.
If James hadn't done the work, he did. They would not have stopped at Light-Traitor. Nikola would not have had to worry about her job in that case.
HSS.
Homeland Surveillance and Security.
James walked past the front doors and picked up his usual retinue of security to see him to the hole that they called his desk now. He remembered the shove one had given him early on. A quick retort. Nothing like four letters followed by "you" to ruin the next months of a man's life. He swore and shoved back. He hadn't even cared that the guard decked him after the shove. The noise had ratcheted up once more and hurt beyond the pain in his jaw. He knew better now. Stay in line.
One more day of work.
He sat, and the door silently closed behind his desk. It was clear. He saw the guard standing outside it.
James pulled up his inbox. There was no notice of the last day of his punishment. But there wouldn't be. They would only tell him when he had been relieved of the noise.
He got to work. Figures and statistics. That was all it was. That was all he saw across his monitor. Don't think of them as anything other than figures and statistics.
James was glad that he worked in Homeland. What of the stats outside the border? Don't think of those. Finish the day. Finish the punishment.
The day went by slowly and painfully as the noise droned on in James's head. The noise was constant, but it never faded beyond consciousness. There was never the relief of droning it out, tuning one’s thoughts beyond the constant. It was constant, and it was pain. But it would be over soon and that's what made it last all the longer this day.
Finally, the guard came in. Shift was over and nothing had hit James’s inbox. No notice. Nothing. The noise continued.
The man motioned for James to get up and go, impatience on his face. His shift must end after James was out. The man wanted to go home. But there had been nothing in the inbox. Nothing yet. The noise continued. James looked down at the monitor and saw that today was the day. It hadn't changed on his punishment notice for months. The day had always been the same. They had given him that one hope. That one number in the future now here. Now going.
The guard tapped him on the shoulder and gave another last gesture to get moving.
James hit the monitor. There was nothing. He refreshed his inbox. Nothing. refreshed it again. Nothing. The guard grabbed his shoulder and James shouted.
"Wait, a goddamn second." The noise ratcheted up tenfold in his ears. Screaming white static. The cacophony of nothing and everything at once. He almost fell to the floor with the pain. He saw the guard laugh when he finally looked up. His punishment had been worth the extra 5 minutes of the man's workday.
The noise was so loud. It seared beyond his ears and seemed to vibrate his brain. It hurt so much. James could barely focus.
The inbox. Just a check. A final check. Today was supposed to be the end of the punishment. This day was the last day. He knew it.
Refresh.
One new message.
James held up a hand at the guard. One second. He opened and read.
"...due to external circumstances. All punishment courses will be extended until such time as the State can reevaluate. We hope you understand the strain of resources put on our Nation by..."
James stopped. The noise did not.
The guard's patience was up and he grabbed James by the shoulder, pulling him out of the office. He didn't have to pull hard. James walked in the loudest silence of his life. Dejected, the noise did not stop. But he had. The guard pushed James out of the front door of the office and the door shut behind the white noise. James didn’t hear it.
He stood outside under the endless clouds of the city in silence. He didn't notice how empty the streets were for the end of the day. James noticed nothing other than the noise.
There was a flash in the clouds beyond the city that James could see. It pulled his attention up. The noise didn't cease, but his mind fought through. Confusion and curiosity mixed. Another flash in the distance and James now knew the external circumstances that the notice in his inbox had discussed. He had always known the circumstances. He had tried to fight that status quo and put a stop to the rising tensions, put an end to the worsening “circumstances.”
But it didn’t matter. The bastards had done it. It didn't matter if they were his bastards or the other ones. James didn’t think of the bastards anymore. James thought of Nikola. She was, had been, closer to the flash. She was already gone.
He would feel the shockwave of the bomb soon enough.
James spoke one last word:
"Fuck."
The noise was deafening.
(6/17/2024)
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Love ya!
-Max
Really enjoyed this story! Very Bradbury-esque