Into our minds

by Teodor Mihalcea

“Hey…mmm…ha ha…w-what are you doing? Get closer, it’s cold out there.
This night is the…”
“No.”
“Wha-what do you mean no? Let me hug you, let me bring you clos…”
“No. I’m…mad at you.”
“At me? Wh…? It’s because I came late to bed? I had to…”
“Stop it! There’s enough bed and duvet for both of us, you don’t need to push
yourself into me.”
“I’m…sorry, that I stayed up so late. But I don’t even care about the bed, or the
warmth, keep me outside the duvet, but let me hug you and sleep with you…don’t
keep me away.”
“And me? I don’t need to sleep with you?! I don’t need to fall asleep in your
arms, feeling the comfort and warmth of your body? But what do I get instead? I get
to fall asleep, in this empty cold bed, alone…while you get to come here whenever
you want, and fall asleep with all the love you need. It’s not fair!”
He opens his mouth, tries hard to push out words, but then just swallows hard,
gulps, I can hear all his internal sounds, even the air coming out that was supposed
to form words, but without the spice of sound.
“… I’m sorry …”
“You better be.”
 “I’m sorry, but I had to…wor…no. I’m not going to lie. I chose work, instead
of you, I’m sorry…OK? I know…I know what I did wrong. I know this is back and
forth, is supposed to be at least. I’m sorry…”
“It’s…OK, I know you love your work but…”
“No, no. It’s not OK. I love you, not my work. It’s you I love. It’s you I chose
to live with and love and dedicate to, for the rest of my life. I shouldn’t have chosen
work instead of you. I can just imagine sleeping in an empty bed, cold and alone. I
can’t believe I did this to you. I’m so sorry, and I’ll never do this to you, ever again.”
I grab her hard and pull her into me, until either the bones into my arms crack,
or our bodies merge into one.
“It’s OK. I’ll forgive you, this time…”
“And there won’t be another.”
She moves inside my grasp and turns to face me.
“I love you.”
“I love you more.”
“Don’t you dare contradict me you motherfucker.”
I grab his right nipple with the nails of my fingers and squeeze hard.
“Who loves who more?”
“Hah ha, it’s wh…wohohohow, it’s you!”
Incredible how much a squished nipple can do.
“Of course it’s me, love.”
She releases my nipple from her claws and kisses me. I already forgot the pain,
but still feel a little soreness.
“Get closer, chest to chest.”
“Wanna see if…?”
“Shhh, don’t jinx it.”
She pushes close, against my chest, with hers, her tits flatten a little. And we
can feel each other’s heartbeats. They…
“They are in sync…”
For the first time our hearts are beating at the same time, we love each other,
but this, I’ve never felt before, it’s…
“It feels so…beautiful.”
 She comes even closer, if that is possible, and lays her head on mine, ear to ear,
and…
‘…I hear something…’
‘Sam?! I hear you! I can hear you!’
‘Lara?…is this…?’
‘Yes, we’re talking with each other, with no sounds coming out of our mouths.’
‘Is this really happening? Lara…’
‘Yes love!’
‘Think of a number, from 1 to 9.’
‘4.’
‘Alright…I choose, 2. So 42, this will give us the answer.’
‘Wait! What it will…mean…if…?’
‘It’s, either you are crazy, or I am crazy, which will be proved if the other has
no idea what this number means when said out loud. Or we both know about it, and
we’ll instantly know it’s true.’
‘Wait! What if we’re both crazy?’
‘Even then, we both know about this number, which we couldn’t have
transmitted to each other any other way, but through our thoughts.’
‘OK. I’m scared. But let’s do it.’
‘Remember, we have to say it at the same time, we count it down.’
‘3’
‘2’
‘1’
‘Now!’
‘Now!’
We both jerk our bodies brutally, as if awoken from the most nightmarish sleep
paralysis, get up, and yell at each other so loud and so scared of what’s to happen.
“42!”
“42!”
“It…!”
 “Yes…! I can’t believe this.”
‘Wait, can we…? Do you hear me?’
‘Yes.’
“Oh fuck!”
“Hahahahhah!”
We both start laughing and yelling and cheering and hugging and kissing and…
“Do you know what this means?! We just discovered telepathy. We can…”
“No. This, means that we love each other so much, that we connected at a
different level. I mean it sounds corny as fuck, but…”
‘I have this feeling, that love created this.’
‘Me too. I love you.’
‘I love you mor…’
‘No! Still no.’
We smile.
‘You’re so beautiful.’
‘And you’re still grounded, so telepathy or not, we go back to sleep now. And
you better hug me so hard and full of sorrow. Like you mean it!’
‘Oh you know, I mean it.’
We both lay down again, grab each other and pull closer, and wait. Both hearts
beat so fast, chaotic from the…event that just happened. But still synchronised. One,
will never beat out of the rhythm of the other. And we both have this new fear now,
that if one stops beating, the other will too.

*1 month later*

‘+2?’
‘Throw it. Y-’
“-Yeah, I can’t believe either that Drake died falling down an elevator shaft. I
mean, he’s a doctor, he’s not dumb, look down!”
“Eh, you know, maybe he got in a fight with the runners. Take two Angela.”
 “Oh my, Sam, you a doll, but damn, they must’ve been really mad at him if
they killed him so gruesomely. Lara, you take four.”
“What do you mean?”
“They could’ve just put him in a coma or something, and bring back when he
apologized, but instead they cut him off for good.”
“I guess I see what you’re saying. And no, Joe gets 6.”
“Fuck! I’ll take them, and can we please end these discussions about this
show?! I really don’t understand anything, and the more you talk about this show,
the more I realise how bad it actually is. And Sam, stop fucking engaging in this, or
have you started to watch this show too now?”
“God damn Joe, chill. I’m not looking at the show, I’m just trying to be part of
the conversation I guess. Whatever, you change the subject, now that you stopped it
so abruptly.”
“Ok…”
‘Now he doesn’t know what to talk about. Sheesh…’
‘Yeah, I know, help him a little, don’t let it all on him.’
‘Alright… I’m going to change it, what you have?’
‘Red 2 and red 7.’
‘Cool, I’ll put red down, change with me.’
‘OK.’
“I’m changing to red. And Joe, tell us how it was in that vacation to Paris, you
haven’t tol…”
‘No. Don’t ask that!’
‘Shit! OK…o’-“Or better, how about you tell us everything that happened in
that other trip to…to…”
“Egypt!”
‘Thanks.’
“Yeah, Egypt, that sounds more interesting.”
‘What happened in Paris?!’
‘Bad experiences, high prices, let-down, they even fought.’
‘Ugh. Good thing you stopped me there.’
‘Yeah.’
 “Well, it was awesome, but I really enjoyed that…that, what was that food
called, Angie?”
“Uhm…Kushari as I remember it. That was good. Lara, it’s your turn, I’ve put
down 6.”
“Oh, ok, Uno, and I change with Sam.”
“But besides that, we saw the pyramids, some museums, other tourists spots,
things like that. But we didn’t got to ride camels. We didn’t got that occasion. But
you two did, in Morocco right?”
‘Yeah, that was awesome, remember Lara, when we…’
Everybody’s looking at me, confused, strange, why…
‘You’re talking with me, just.’
‘Shit.’
I look back at the other two and smile.
“Morocco, yeah…me and Lara took a long trip on back of the camels. It was
fun.”
‘You alright?’
‘Yeah, I don’t know, I was just confused I guess.’
“Alright, fun it was… It’s your turn Sam, I’ve put the 9 down.”
I put down the red 2 and win.
“Won again. So good…”
Everyone still looks at me, kind of concerned.
“You guys, are you OK?”
Angie looks at me asking the question but then she looks at Lara.
“We?”
Lara answers a little surprised.
“Yeah, we are alright, I mean why wouldn’t we be?”
“Well, me and Angie, we’ve seen lately, that you guys aren’t talking with each
other that much. It’s like, you look at each other sometimes, and smile, or look like
you’re going to engage in a banter, a chat, something, but you never do anymore. If
we don’t push you, or make it so, you don’t speak to each other, at all.”
I look at Sam, he already was looking at me but then immediately turns his head
and eyes on someone else.
 “That’s not true, or…I didn’t noticed that. But we talk to each other, right
Sam?”
‘Righ…’
“Right, right.”
‘Well that was very convincing.’
‘I don’t know what to do, I can’t control this, talking between us, I can’t switch
that easily to talk with my mouth or with my mind. And it seems lately that the
default setting is to talk with my mind.’
‘They’re somehow right. We need to start talking with our mouths more.’
“Yeah…maybe we ran out of words, or something. I mean, I pretty much know
everything about Lara’s life, and she too knows everything about mine.”
“You are pretty connected, you’ve beaten us a lot lately, it’s like you understand
each other just from a glance. But, we wanted to make sure you’re alright. You seem
changed, both of you, the relationship seems different.”
“Yeah, maybe it’s because we can glance at each other and that’s enough. But
we really are good. Thanks for the concern guys.”
‘Damn, we talk too much in here.’
‘Yes, we need to change this, people are starting to notice it. They are not the
first to do so.’
‘We will.’

*3 months later*

‘This is the one?’

‘Yeah, it looks like it. They said the entrance is at a leaves covered arch.’
‘That’s one.’
We get in and past a lady that was waiting to check for reservations and to take
us to the table. She looks at us and tries to stop us but I point the finger to a direction
where I already saw our friends.
‘We already have someone inside at a table.’
 But he said it without moving his lips so the hostess couldn’t understand more
than that he might be mad. As his face expressions said what his mouth didn’t while
he was pointing with the finger forward.
‘Honey…’
“Wait, do you have a reservation?”
‘Shit, I did it again didn’t I.’
“Yeah… We have some friends waiting for us already at the table.”
“Oh, alright, have a good evening.”
‘I…told you we shouldn’t’ve accepted their invitation. The exercises didn’t
went well. We are… It’s getting worse. We need more time to practice it, to…’
‘The only way to practice it is with real interaction. We need to put ourselves
in situations that demand us to speak. That forces us. If we don’t figure this out…
It’ll just get worse.’
‘It doesn’t seem the worst, for us to…’
“Hey, you arrived!”
“Welcome, take a seat, we haven’t ordered yet.”
“Yeah, we waited for you guys.”
“Thanks, we”…‘we-’…“went a little in circles to find this place. Sam said he
knows where it is and, we got a little lost and…”
…
‘W-’…“We”…‘sh-’…‘sh-’…‘shoul-’…“sh-”…‘should’…“should ask for the
check.”
“That fast?”
‘Honey…’
“Yes…we should go, we”…‘don’t feel that g’…“don’t feel that good.”
“You guys, something is…we’ve talked, and you are not acting like yourselves
lately, at all. Is something wrong?”
‘N-’…“No.”
“We…are tired. We haven’t slept at all lately. We do need to go. We’ll see each
other…”
We both get up, Sam takes out some cash for our part of the bill and we wave
at them as a goodbye. They’re looking at us in perplexity. Then we leave.
 *4 months later*

“…and with each month we started to lose our ability to speak, we had
difficulties in having conversations with others, and talking became like a weight, a
very heavy weight that we had to lift with so skinny arms. It came to a point where
we were unable to speak at all. The point we are in now, we cannot speak a word
anymore. We are completely mutes, and it happened to us like someone that stops
using a language and forgetting it bit by bit, until it cannot speak it or understand it
at all.”
We both look at each other. Regret, paralysis, anxiety, confusion, fear of the
unknown. We wait.
“So, you cannot speak anymore, and you could before…it says here…4 months
ago you were able to talk without problem. And it happened to both of you at
approximately same time?”
We shake our heads in approval. The doctor leaves the note on the desk, gets
up from the chair, takes off the glasses and looks at us as if looking at a great mystery.
He then sighs and sits down at his desk again.
“Well, I looked at your MRI’s, I’ve analysed them quite well, and some
changes are there, different from a normal brain, I don’t want to say normal, but
usual…anyway, it’s nothing radical, nothing that could put your lives in danger, it
is a mutation, which I see that happened in both of you. But it’s nothing operable,
there is no reason to do anything, besides your muteness. And I have no idea how to
even tackle that. It’s a first, that I can say. I can only think of causes now, but you
said you weren’t exposed to radiation, or exposed to chemicals, or, whatever idea
comes to mind, the doctor that sent you to me already infirmed with your help.”
He looks at us, waiting for an answer, Lara starts moving her hands and fingers.
‘‘‘We were not exposed to anything. I’m sorry we can’t help you more than
that.’’’
“It is good though, that you learned the sign language. Did it took a lot to learn
it and to start using it?”
‘‘‘I had learned it before, when I was volunteering as a social worker. My
husband is learning it now and seems to improve well.’’’
“Yeah…I have absolutely no idea what you just said, I don’t know sign
language.”
 Lara sighs loudly and looks visibly irritated.
‘This mother fucker.’
‘I don’t know why we came here in the first place, the other doctors had nothing
to say to help us. He won’t be able to help us either.’
‘We can’t do anything else but try. What if we’re going to be like this forever?’
‘Is being able to talk only to me, forever, such a bad thing?’
‘No…but, it’s a change, it’s a drastic change that will affect our lives.’
‘Would you rathe…?’
“How are you, understanding each other then? You said this happened for
months, at different levels, but these months you lived together right? And Sam here
just now is a little good at sign language, so… You…had any problems?”
We both shake our heads, no.
“How were you communicating? Because you can’t just live with someone that
you don’t understand. Sooner or later, you’ll get distance between you two, but you
didn’t, did you?”
We shake our heads in no.
‘Should I tell him about…?’
‘No, are you crazy? No one can ever know, it doesn’t matter if we can’t get
proper help, it’s better than risking to become lab rats and live forever being tortured
and tested until we finally give up and just die.’
‘But maybe he’ll understand. Maybe…’
‘Maybe. For me, this isn’t such a bad thing. If there is only one person that I
can talk with, and that’s you, I lost nothing. But if we tell him, I might lose
everything.’
She looks at me, with so much love in her eyes, and I nod in approval and tell
him.
‘Alright. Let’s go home.’
“To me, it seems that you understand each other, now, more than before, when
you could talk. As I’m witnessing even now. There is a connection between you two,
you developed a way to communicate, that’s better, so you evolved, you didn’t
needed the old way, so you forgot.”
 We both look at him, shake our heads just once down, and get up. We look like
we don’t need answers anymore. And the doctor doesn’t feel like pushing us,
especially when he doesn’t know sign language.
“Alright then, it seems that I don’t have the answers you’re looking for, and
that you aren’t even looking that hard for those answers. I guess it’s better this way.
We, humans, have the power to adapt to change. So do that.”
We both nod in acknowledgment and thanks and leave the cabinet.

We don’t need to talk with the world, communicate, be part of it, our world just
got insanely small in the course of these months, from the whole world, to just us.
And our new small world, is more than enough, for both of us, and we can
communicate just fine. We’re happy as it is. Who knows, maybe we adapted, to our
love, and did this to ourselves. Maybe we chose this world.

THE END