Brief Tale of a Tongue by [sarah] Cavar

The Operator sewed a mouth. I don’t know the woman whose mouth it was, but I know she was chalky and hollow in all the ways I had once wished to be. What raw, innocent pain I felt, living amid a clueless abjection I did not know how to think. It was RSCH in my head, RSCH law mapped to my body, but flipped inside-out and poked with skewers and chopped in pieces and fed until I blew. I had no words for any of it, yet I gave myself to its familiarity.

Still, I’d never have my mouth sewn. I speak too much, and I only know a few of the symbols some make with their hands; artifacts (artificial, that is, untrue, facts) of an oldworld English.

I could see the benefit to a sewn mouth. With RSCH hiring, we were all on high alert. There must be more defectors, more people getting found and chopped. There was talk among the uncitizenry of speculative
                                                                                                     that is, concerning untruth,
                                                                                                                            drones to better survey the wild. This, even though drone usage was restricted to the borders of the community (which drones themselves discovered-drew against contamination). I did not know if the drones would come, but I watched mod requests grow more desperate. A sewn mouth and stopped scream might help her hide from the axe, especially given RSCH knowledge of our voiceprints, only modifiable via ever-rarer hormone supplements.

The operator began with her tongue. She gave its cut her permission by pulling with all her might on the tongue and gesturing wildly toward it while the Operator watched with its eyes-for-hands, both hands extended straight out, pupils spinning wildly. Then she screamed and the trees shook with it. She screamed until she didn’t.

When the tongue departed, it did not remain in the Operator’s bloody hand but dropped to the ground, wriggling like a living thing. Hopping through the dirt. Entering the filthy river. Turning all the water part-saliva.

I followed the tongue, having had enough of the operation. It danced through the river and I did too, first walking then skipping then loping, that is, running like an animal, as if the tongue and the river were animals and I was an attempt to join. When the tongue landed once more I reached out to grab it. It almost slipped away, but I held firm and still. It wriggled the way my body would if my body could wriggle without me, pleading for its own eradication. It begged (of) itself: please remove that thing.

I was generous with the voice I gave it, lacing its plea with the notion of all the expletives I didn’t know, the filthy oldworld words long since condemned out of history. Little emptinesses like running tongues. I dropped the thing into the water. It splashed as if they were english. For each splash a word unworded.