Don't think before you speak

This story was born out of an inspiration sparked by a piece

Blessed Warrior Reina

wrote: Unquenchable Longing
I promised something interesting, but sorry: it's not that great. There are people who write well on substack, and this story is little more than a cold, gray stone in a river. But my sincere thanks go to Reina for allowing me to use her post: Her text is the river into which I placed my little stone.

Unquenchable Longing

Something U keeps calling to me
A quiet whisper of excitement in the darkness.
Each time your name unexpectedly appears.
Confusion sets in when I'm alone and a flash photo of your embrace
In my mind replays itself
Causing my heart to start beating wildly.
Betrayed by my soul that longs for that commitment, that connection
My thoughts believe that you would sell me out just for the warmth of a mate.
The struggle in my head becomes anything but peace and serenity,
On the contrary, I am dragging myself into unwarranted anxiety.

Image by freepik

1.

Arthur Carlson turned the page looking for more details, something to show him what was going on in the flats of this building. But the rest of the journal was blank.
My thoughts believe, he echoed, moving his lips imperceptibly, without sound. A mental whisper. A synaptic rustle.
And then Grady came into the room. Grady’s breath was always metallic, as if needles were scraping his neck.
“There’s a woman,” Grady thought, starting a telepathic conversation.
Arthur turned his head. “A woman?” He asked mentally as well.
”Yeah.”
”Is she alive?”
“She is.”
Arthur walked up to him. “Then, I will have some thoughts with her.”
“Hum... Not prudent,” thought Grady back.
“I’ll take my chances.”
“As you wish,” Grady pressed. A mental pressure, of course. “But I’ll be there.”
Grady got curious. Grady wanted to know.
Arthur met his eyes. “I’d like a thought with her. Alone.”
Grady shook his head. “See, if I could witness your conversation with a living woman in this town, I would have something amazing to think to with my grandchildren.”
Arthur was surprised, and the next thought slipped out without him being able to stop it, “Manage to get government permission to have a child?”
The other shrugged. The long, sharp face paled. “Well, not really.”
Arthur didn’t smile. “You’re not allowed to have children, and you’re considering grandchildren?” He thought. “Take me to this woman, Grady. She has much to explain if she is alive.”

2.

They walked out. Several cops were waiting in the circle of police cars. It was getting darker. And in that darkness the blue light of the police cars had become eerie. The cops’ minds were closed. They didn’t want to share their thoughts with him?
How do things get so complicated? Arthur wondered, keeping his head down to hide while thinking.
Grady led him to the electric light cascading from three streetlamps. The agonizing electrical hum in the background seemed to increase, disrupting the perfect lack of words.
The woman was in a shade. Without realizing it, Arthur slowed down. Grady, on the other hand, came to a complete stop, keeping a safe distance, like a guardian. His thoughts door closed.
Arthur held out his hand to the woman. She did the same. They shook hands, and the microchips in their palms matched signals. The identification process was completed in seconds, and all of the woman’s data entered Arthur’s brain, invading his synapses.
Then, he mentally asked her, “Melania Levine?”
She nodded. Her eyes were dark, intense. Like many in this town she was hairless. They had cut everybody’s hair. She had pale skin. A red pigment stained her lips.
“Do you believe this building is hiding something?” She asked in the usual thought process, removing her hand from Arthur’s.
“The whole town is hiding something,” he thought back to her. “And if you’re alive, maybe you have something to hide as well.” His gaze was on her more closely. “You’re alive, right?”
She confirmed, “I am alive. Completely.”
“Which puts you ... out of the pattern. We’ve only found stranded bodies in this town. Alive but lifeless.”
She smiled. Sadly. “I know.”
“Why have you come to me?” He asked her with a more intense thought.
“I know what’s going on.”
Arthur walked up to her. “Are you?”
“Yes. I mean ... the journal.”
His lips parted as if he were about to speak. But he said nothing. He thought, and the silence was still, “The journal I found?”
“Yes. Describe it, please,” she asked.
“It’s an old object with sheets of paper. Fifty-seven sheets, and only one in use. I read what was written in it.”
Her thoughts became silent. Arthur continued, “If someone wrote and risked exile in a government mental prisons, then had to send a message outside the controls. An important message.”
“That’s why I’m here.” she thought. “Here for you.”
“You wrote that message?”
“Arthur ...” she murmured, loudly. “Arthur ...” she repeated.
It had an extraordinary power over him to hear a human voice again, to hear it through his ears. It shocked him. It thrilled him. A voice. A real voice. Sounding, not thinking.

Arthur’s next thought was, “Who are you?”
“The one who will free you from your prison, Arthur.”
“Prison?”
Arthur turned around. Grady was staring at him with a grin on his face. The night was lit by alien LED pulses. No stars. Only artificial lights. There were no stars at all. The night sky became a room ceiling. Arthur began to feel bounded, to get that he was inside something. Confined.
“Oh God...” was his desperate thought.
“I’ll get you out, Arthur. Just hold on!”
Everything came back to him. He gazed a her. “Melania!” He said, hearing his own voice again.

3.

Arthur Carlson’s body shivered.
“Hey, Grady, but is prisoner AC85 dreamin’?” A man dressed in white asked mentally as he cleaned out Arthur’s detention shell.
“No way. He can dream anymore.” Grady replied, again through a mental process.
Grady had the inside track on the prisons, the prisoners, and everyone who worked there. Grady had been there from the very beginning. But he didn’t feel like a prisoner. No way. He felt free, but dressed in white like everyone else in there.
The first man went on it again, “But why did they put him in here? He seems different from the others.”
“Well, he’s not,” Grady cut him off. “He and his wife had two kids without the government’s permission. Then this guy violated non-verbal communication restrictions to save ‘em all from just punishment.”
“Meaning?”
“He went out of controlled thought procedures and started writing.”
“Gee, a pure idealist,” the first man chuckled. “And his wife?”
“Missing,” Grady thought back to him. “Now quit. We’re being read,” he added, tapping his finger on his forehead. The man in white gave him a thumbs up and went away.
Grady looked at Arthur Carlson’s face. Arthur’s blue eyes were wide, as usual, and his lips were moving, as usual, in an incoherent repetition of no voiced words. Like all those trapped in the mental prison.
“You fool of a writer!” Grady muttered mentally. And he spat on the shell, then walked away, whistling. A mental whistle.
Then the lights dimmed, and the ten thousand six hundred and eighty shells in this section ended up in semi-darkness, giving off a pulsating violet light. They looked like jellyfish hearts in a opaque deep-sea.
But there still was a completely alive among those who were not completely alive. And she was writing something in a journal. She was wrtiting to keep him alive. She was crouched in the shade.

Thank you very much for reading this mess ;-)