Regained Voice

“Of course the door is locked,” I thought, “why wouldn’t it have been?” I pressed my disfigured face against the glass and peered through into the vacant store; immaculate. Clearly it was unaware of the desolation that inhabited the city beyond its four walls. What now, what now? I shouldn’t have even left… wait a second why am I here? I, um… I reached for my phone to take note of my brain hiccup, but then remembered—I had lost my voice. “Just give up you fool,” I thought as I slouched even more than I already always was, “I just… what will I do with my phone after, if actually, if, I fix it? Write about how I am filled with repulsion, with hate, with terror, with anxiety, with doubt, with”—I hadn’t felt anything positive for so long. “I am… I am powerless.” I stood there feeling dejected. The moon waned then waxed and waned again.

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You and your phone; Essential Hacks; A DIY Approach; I tilted book awkwardly in my hand as I tried to read the title through the light reflections the sleek cover grandiloquently reflected. Has no one opened this book? I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised as these DIY books rarely seem useful. Truly a library is a plethora of information, but perhaps some information doesn’t belong on coveted library shelf, but perhaps this one did belong. Inside I found an article on how to replace your phone’s battery. On every page printed in red in the top and bottom margins of the article was a warning: You will void your warranty if you attempt this procedure; perform at your own risk. Here friends is help on how to bypass the powers who oppress your freedom, but here, let us instill fear in you so that you won’t seek such freedom. Hmm…?

Armed with knowledge that I could repair my voice I set out to find my salvation. Back out into the barren world beyond my sanctuary. I creaked open the front doors. I looked out about the empty streets strewn with decomposing corpses. “I don’t remember that there were so many dead that had made this their final resting place.” What had we left at our end: a misguided ambition; a scar upon the Earth; dark, dark thoughts of sadness of loneliness? I stepped down onto the first step down.

A bag chock-full of stolen phones bounced against my hip with every shuffle-step I took back to the library. Though, is it theft if the owners of the store are probably, most definitely dead? Then again, I suppose I could argue that I paid for them through the amount of effort and time it took me just to get them. After collecting my piteous self, I set out to search for a tool to use to break the window with. Fortunately I hadn’t to go far, for a car had wrecked into a building not far from the store, and had dislodged a sizable chunk concrete. Tool in hand I banged it feebly banged it against the glass door over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over until some time later, perhaps a week or more, it finally splintered, then shattered. I almost gave in to my self-destructive thoughts again when I couldn’t find the stock room key.

“Blasted fingers! Blasted rotten flesh! Blasted shot nerves! Blasted it all!” I mentally wailed and slid my phone as violently as I could away from me down the table I sat at. I thrust my fingers against my forehead and pressed them into my exposed skull. It was all for naught. My fingers were just not nimble enough to pry open the phone casing. How fortunate though that I had the rare foresight to have to try my hand at writing with a pencil again. Weeks later I surmounted that most insurmountable task, for then, and now I must possess the most dexterous fingers of any undead, and now I have my voice back. I am dead no longer, grossly decayed, yes, but dead no longer.