Erase Me

VI

I met Devi Argall at the room the next afternoon. When I didn’t have school and I wanted to be alone, I went to the room and sometimes Devi went their too to be alone and sometimes we were there at the same time to be alone together.

She was tall and gorgeous. She had shimmering golden hair that tumbled down her back to her hips. Her jaw was crisp, her nose small, her lips plump, and her dark eyes large. She had a bold body that she kept her herself. Devi was observant and wise . . . the perfect person to ask for advice.

I still had Idris’s words fluttering in my head. He said he was afraid too . . . too. That meant that he thought I was afraid and the thought of it made me want to run home and scrub myself.

“Devi, have you ever been afraid?”

She thought a moment then nodded. She began tapping her foot against the ground: one . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five.

“When you were five years old?” I pieced together. She nodded. I tried to think but then it occurred to me. I didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to make her relive bad memories. “Was that when you had your tongue ripped out?” Her long black lashes veiled the pain in her eyes. I summoned my courage. “How did it happen?”

She began drumming out the story.

 *        *        *

 I was five years old and walking through the woods with my parents. I knew what music was but I was too young to realize it was dangerous.

[She swallowed]. I was singing a song, this sweet innocent song with this sweet innocent voice. I was making up the words as I went along and it sounded so wonderful that I couldn’t stop even when my parents told me to.

That was when a police officer ripped me from my parents’ grasps and took me to town square. I was crying but I heard people begging for mercy for me.

The executioner looked into my eyes. He was holding the axe but he looked into my eyes and he put it down and went over to a group of senators that had gathered to watch.

They whispered to each other for a long time before the executioner dragged me inside and he . . . cut out my tongue.

 *        *        *

Devi’s hands slowly stopped moving. The pitter patter of her foot tapping the ground gently faded away with the wind. Her head was bowed and I was worried I had hurt her for making her relive the single event that changed her life forever.

Then she straightened up and looked at me with that familiar strength in her dark eyes that I always admired about her. I knew she was trying to tell me something and she wished she could just give her words a voice. Instead, she was forced to turn to her hands and began patting her lap and the surfaces around us to convey her message:

“The government is weak if it could not kill me, not strong as they had always intended.”

I took those words to heart and hurried home to my guitar and my piano.