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swirlsofpurple) wrote2024-10-04 08:35 pm
Title: Another brick
Dolly picks up her coffee, pressing her fingers to her chin and moving them away in a silent thank you. The barista nods and types out ‘have a nice day’ on their tablet. Dolly types out ‘you too’ on her own tablet. The drink is an expense she can’t really afford at the moment, but she also can’t afford to fall asleep behind the wheel and crash her truck.
She climbs into the driver’s seat and looks on her long haul app, DeliverNow, to line up a job after this one. The ache in her eyes and head ramps up in protest. She’s in desperate need of sleep.
Dolly stops at a post for delivery to a place where air toxicity is terrible. She’d usually just scroll past. Also, the minimal detail of what’s actually being delivered (definitely something illegal) would’ve made her block the poster entirely.
Now, instead, she brings up her Cord bill. Again. And stares at it.
One thousand, three hundred and fifty six pounds.
Her and Beth are usually pretty good at sticking to their budget of a hundred pounds a month for the Cord bill. At a pound a word, they usually end up saying around eighty to ninety words out loud. They’ve gotten used to mostly speaking via tablet and signing. Even when Beth’s mum died, they’d gotten through the month with three hundred and eight words spoken.
Then there was the fight, which would usually just be a lot of furious typing with a few out loud swears. But it was a bad one, they’d gotten carried away and started yelling. Before they even realized what they were doing, over a thousand words had been said.
And now Dolly’s working gruelling delivery shifts to make the money for it.
She looks at the post. In one night she could earn enough to clear the whole debt.
Dolly doesn’t do things like this though. She’s sensible; has done this job long enough to know how quickly things can go bad when you start working with contraband. On the other hand: she’s bone exhausted and can’t go on like this much longer. It’s only once.
*
Dolly can almost feel the toxicity increase as she gets on the motorway headed into the town. It’s viscous, suffocating. It’s in her head: it’s not actually possible to tell by breathing alone. But it feels true regardless.
As she arrives at her destination, she finds two men chatting. Out loud. With no concern whatsoever for the number of words they’re saying. Must be stinking rich. Whatever she’s carrying is definitely illegal and probably worth a mint.
She hands over the packages without a word, doesn’t even take out her tablet.
“How are you? It’s a long trek up here, fancy coming in for a drink?”
Dolly shakes her head no.
“Look, it’s just it’s a hard time getting people to make these deliveries, we were going to ask if you’d be interested in repeat business.”
She picks up her tablet, writes: at this pay-scale, can’t be too hard.
“Would you like to know what you’re delivering?” He rips open the package before she can refuse.
She catches sight of it before she can look away. Medicine bottles. Filled with Speak-free.
Junk. The wares of snake-oil salesmen.
She’s met with a smirk.
“We don’t speak aloud because we’re rich. We speak aloud because our vocal cords aren’t artificial. We don’t have a Cord bill.”
‘Speak-free doesn’t work.’
“Yeah. The people charging everyone for usage of their artificial cords have spent a lot of money ensuring everyone believes that.”
*
Dolly starts making regular trips delivering Speak-free. She doesn’t know if she believes in it. But the money is good. The more she sees of the people taking it, the more she sees that these people aren’t rich. They’re just ordinary. And yet, they speak with such reckless abandon. There’s really no explanation. Especially considering the air is at its most toxic here. Organic vocal cords can’t survive this environment. There’s only one conclusion: the drugs work.
*
‘You’re having your vocal cords removed?!’ Beth accompanies her words with several incredulous emojis.
‘Only the artificial ones.’
‘Yes, because vocal cord recovery is real and dinosaurs never existed and the earth is flat.’
‘What’s the harm, it’s not like we can even afford to use them, let’s call it a precautionary measure.’
‘You’re not going to change your mind.’
‘No.’
“I love you.” Three pounds.
“I love you too.” Seven pounds total.
*
The days following the removal are a nightmare. Her voice a scrapping together of whispering squawks and mewls, nothing close to words. She takes her Speak-free diligently and watches Beth’s happy smile and sad eyes.
Days turn into weeks. She begins to think she’s done something incredibly stupid. She keeps taking the pills. What else is there to do?
Twenty-six days later, Dolly wakes up and says a croaky, “Hi.”
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- Erulisse (one L)
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Dan
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Brava!👏👏👏
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I think we'd all be in trouble ;).
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I must say, you're really knocking it out of the park this season with your science fiction stories.
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