Entry Four

This is Rewel.  As I cradle the infant in my arm, my thumb and middle finger gently resting on her temples, she coos. It is a sweet sound, a soft sound, and soon the room is silent.

Mornings are painful. One child in the zone is born every day and every child must be silenced. Speaker Matduke goes with me, the same that points, his neuron waves are most frequent; his prosthetic eye focusing silently on my form. It is like this every day: a walk across the street to the infirmary, I am handed an infant, some children wail and Speaker Matduke shuts down his auditory sensors and at times he will grimace, a glint of wire in his teeth, his gums. I silence the child and we walk back. He sends no language through me and I say no words to him. Most days I believe him to be filled only with a series of circuits.

I don’t remember the time before, I don’t know that there was one. The city has always been a white blister spread out under this tower. I do remember their faces, the people. The look of terror, anger, the screeching so quickly switched the vacant stares, the silence. I remember the woman who cried, hot tears on the palms of my hands as she begged: “Don’t, sir, I need to speak, I need to see.” I remember the man who called me son.

The air smells of the stagnant.