Zoe Cummins

She describes sounds she hears, music, conversation, whole lives appearing from a void to join her.

She heard my mother's mouth making sounds where there should have been silence.

My sister had only screamed at her, but it was enough to give mum such a fright her heart gave out.

By the time my sister's scream reached me in the kitchen, mum was dead.

Nobody asked how it happened, just when it happened.

I delve deeper into madness and sound, peaceful minds tormented.

I try to map my research onto what I know about my sister.

And then I wonder, as I'm telling you many, many months in, if it all ever really happened at all, as I've aimed to forget.

But you know that you never really can forget, because it never really can be forgotten, especially the tumbling scream of it all.

I wonder if you'll think I'm crazy too, but you think I'm just self-destructive, which is a different thing entirely.

By telling you, is the sound dispersed even further, or does it just have one more object to bounce off?

I look up how sound reflects and start to love the terms parabola and ellipse.

I think the way we talk is like an ellipse, a whispering gallery where you stand on one side and I on the other, and we can still hear each other clearly, even in a room full of people.

Years in, I get frustrated with you for not speaking enough.

Then you're speaking too softly in a crowd.

No one can hear you.

I say it kindly at first and then with increasing anger, speak up, speak up.

You must speak up or people won't understand your accent.

By the time we've come to the end, we're shouting across the distance and I can hear you fine.

But don't you find fighting 0-1-6-4-3-A-T-A-W-P, boring.