The doctor looked at
me in the eye and
smiled wanly. "Are you ready,
Charlie?"
Her voice was smooth
and calm, yet strictness
was curling in a blanket
at the corner.
I nodded and she handed
me a pair of headphones.
She let me stay in the room,
laying on the cold bed as
the monotonous voices of
recorded alphabets and
sentences began to repeat itself,
over and over and over.
Three months later—almost
2,232 hours later—almost 8,035,200
seconds later.
Phonation, resonance; intonation,
pitch; voice, language, phonology,
morphology, syntax, grammar,
semantics, pragmatics,
communication.
"Charlie?"
"Y-yes?"
