By Sam Glover.
There is still a bit, I tell him, just a little bit, left in me, trickling out, it’s still trickling out of me, but soon there won’t be any left. It’s leaking, I tell him, the person sat opposite, trickling away, down my leg, pooling around my feet and across the pavement. It’s all that’s left of me, this trickling, and once it’s all trickled away there won’t be anything more. All that I’ll leave of me will be the puddle I leave behind. I’ll leave all that’s left of me behind on the ground. The ground: a fitting place for something fallen. It’s where I stand. It’s where I leak. It is where I speak and walk. As I walk, I speak, and as I speak, I trickle away, bit by bit. They’re the two things I’m still capable of doing, walking and speaking, though with each step and each word I lose a part of myself, leaking out, drop by drop. There isn’t much of me left. But while some remains, there remain some things for me to do. All I can do is speak and walk, all I am are steps and words. But each one, following one after the other, drains me of what little I have left in me, of me. A word, a few words, trickling out, as I walk, further deplete the little remaining. Even if I were able, somehow, to stem the leak, I still wouldn’t be able to speak another word. I would be silent. And yet, while there’s still something left in me, I need to let it out in words, drip by drip by drip. The trickling is my voice, my blood. A voice that isn’t mine leaks from my mouth. I have to keep speaking, I tell him, to say the things I need to say, there still remains that for me to do, it is paramount, I can’t fall silent yet, but with each word that drips out and with each step drop by drop I drain the part of myself that is capable of speaking and walking. I bring myself closer to being the puddle I’ll leave behind. I need to speak, to keep walking, but the speech that trickles out of me is what will reduce me to silence. I only have so much left in me to say, soon there won’t be anything left, I can then fall silent, but I can’t do that yet, it’s too early. But I am almost drained completely of what gives me speech, and each word, as I walk, leaves me with less than I had before. My speaking is what will drain me of speech. In being drained, I will be silent. My open mouth, empty of words, will hang slack at the jaw. I don’t want that yet. So I continue to speak, you can hear me, can’t you, but as I trickle away, in speaking, I bring myself nearer to silence. I speak because I have to let it leak out. I can’t keep it inside, stagnant, blocked up. It needs trickle out or I’ll burst. But this need to speak, but of what, and to who, to speak one word and then another, faster, leaving shorter and shorter gaps, this will accelerate my silencing.
Do you see, I ask him, the situation, this babble trickling out of me slowly, but faster and faster, is what wards off the silence even as it brings me closer to it, to becoming the silent puddle I’ll leave behind on the ground. I haven’t made myself clear. With each word, things become less clear. Even as I speak, there is no sound of words, only footsteps, walking, and the dripping of water, blood, or some other liquid, from my open mouth. Each word is a droplet. Each droplet leaks from me. The leak will drain me of speech. The leak will make me silent, even as it makes me speak, once I’ve been completely drained. There isn’t much in me left. Only a little bit. But even with this, I tell him, gesturing with my fingers to signify a miniscule amount, even with the reserves that I am continually depleting, I can make a lot of noise before I give out. Can you hear me, I ask him, to no response. I repeat, I can make a lot of noise, just listen to the dripping sound. That is my voice ebbing away, growing fainter with each word. If I were just to slow down, to choose my words more carefully, to leave greater gaps between them, I could slow the trickle and put the approaching silence at a further distance. But I am in a rush to say everything that I haven’t already, and all the things I’ve said already too, they bear repeating, and I am in such a rush to say these things that I will void myself of everything and fall silent at an age more premature than most. I would rather, I tell him, get it all out and fall silent early, than draw it out and fall silent at a later point. But that’s not right. It’s a lie. I don’t tell him, but it’s a lie. Nothing terrifies me more than falling silent earlier than necessary. That’s why I continue to leak at this rate, to keep the silence at bay, as I’ve told you already, but losing the little I have left will only bring me nearer the silence. Can’t you hear it? It is nearby. It is so close that my words fall into it, bleeding away, fainter with each droplet. With each word I say to ward off the silence I get a step closer to falling into it and losing myself completely. That is one of the things, I tell him again, that I have to do, speak and walk until I lose myself completely in the silence, until all my voices having trickled out of this open wound, my mouth, until a puddle has formed on the ground around my empty shoes.
My voice is what will silence me. My trickle of speech will run dry. But I can’t stop speaking. I’ve said too much to stop now. There is too much left to say. And yet I haven’t said anything at all. I haven’t even begun to speak, I said to him, and yet I’m running out of things to say. And yet there is always more to say. And I am not running out of things to say, I am losing the ability to speak altogether, it’s trickling out of me. It trickles out of me, speech, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but always leaking. A thin trickle of sounds, a leakage of words, sometimes quiet, barely audible, he can’t hear me speak when I ask him, can you hear me, sometimes loud, too loud, the dripping in my ears of words unbearably amplified and resonant. But then, when there are gaps, when my speech slows to a crawl and the space between utterances grows, how much more unbearable it all becomes. That is because I am still, for now, capable of saying something, of talking, to him, the person opposite me, or to myself, to what’s left of me, the person I used to be, before I began losing my voice, before it started running away, a thin trickle, from my mouth, the person who used to be able to express himself fluently, without this fear of falling to the ground, silent, before I have said all I have to say, but he doesn’t listen to me, he can’t hear a word I say, so when I speak to myself I speak only to what surrounds me, a space depleted of things, nearly completely empty. All there is in this space is a dripping sound, there must be a tap, or pipe, somewhere, leaking, and there is a table at which I sit before the person opposite me, who looks at me as I speak, who stays silent while I talk, and then there is a puddle, on the ground, growing in size around my shoes. The puddle grows as my mouth trickles. The puddle is the product of my speech. The more I say, the more it grows. When I stop speaking, when my ability to speak has gone, when I have no more words, the puddle will be complete. I will be all puddle and no speech. But there are still some things, little droplet words, that I have to say to the person opposite me, to you, whoever out there is listening to me, before I’ve been completely drained. What were they again? The things I haven’t said yet are the things I have to say. But all I can say are things I’ve already said, not once, not twice, many times, I forget how much, more. You’ve heard me say all this before, I say to him, so many times, you’ve almost fallen asleep, haven’t you, and he nods. You’ve heard me say it all before, not just once, or twice, but many times, I tell him, and now, I tell him, you’d rather fall to the ground than hear another word. Listen, they can be heard, each word, dripping as I speak, drip, drop, drip, drop, drip…
There are so many things left to say, I’ve almost run out of words. I tried to tell him this, the person sitting opposite me, I tried to tell him that soon I wouldn’t be able to say anything anymore. But he can’t hear. All he can hear are the droplets, sometimes falling quickly, sometimes slowly, but always falling, from my mouth to the ground, a babbling sound, the sound of dripping, always falling, for now, until drained of the last drop. A word trickles out and falls into the puddle where it ripples. The droplet disperses into the puddle and the puddle grows around my shoes. The liquid surface becomes still until another word is said. But I’m not still until another word is said. I feel ready, I tell him, to burst. Every unsaid word brings me closer to bursting. Every word said brings me closer to dissolving, closer to becoming a puddle and not a person. Either I burst or liquefy, these are the two alternatives. One or the other draws near. I move towards either one at once. If I stem the leak, keep the words inside me, I will be quiet and will become completely silent. If I let them trickle out, I will make sounds, I will speak, can anyone hear me speak, and then fall completely silent. That is the ground I stand on, I tell him. Perhaps I could turn the valve, let the pressure out, in writing, rather than saying, words. But then, despite speaking, in a way, through signs rather than sounds, I would be silent, and no one would hear me. Can you hear me? The silence would consume me even as the words trickled out as ink. And then, thereafter, no one would read it. No one, not even the person sitting opposite me, would be able to read what was written. The writing would be tantamount to saying nothing whatsoever. Perhaps I’ve only ever said nothing, all this dripping, it’s as if I haven’t said anything, not a word. And yet I’m being drained of all I could say, of the ability to say anything at all, without ever having said anything at all. There’ll be nothing left soon. Perhaps, I tell him, my problem was that I thought I could say something to someone. But really my words only fall and disappear as drops upon the ground. Once they’ve been said, they can’t be said again, and in the end there won’t be any evidence of my speech: not even an echo, once the final drop has dripped.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sam Glover is a writer from London. His début novel, Mirage City, is forthcoming from Black Glove Press, and his short fiction has appeared before in 3:AM Magazine, Ligeia Magazine, minor literature[s], and ergot. He can be found on Instagram @abrupt.encounter and on X @bruptencounter.
