"Not sure anymore...
I seem to really be able to burn a bridge. Like, when most people do, there are still remnants, fragments of the whole. Eventually, the burnees can reunite and patch together the bridge fragments, reconstructing a new one. It's a lovely process, leaving the two burners of the bridge's friendship even better than where they left off.
But when I burn a bridge, I incinerate it. And the ashes, useless reminders, are always swept away in some happenstance wind, scattering the remnants of past friendships and depleting any possibilities of erecting the bridge.
I don't imagine, I'm safe here.
I had good intentions. I could've sworn, no, I'm sure I saw her. Walking across the silver overpass with windows for floors near 16th street. I saw the bottom of her sneakers. I saw the golden flip of her hair, bouncing in a ponytail, just like before. I saw myself and who I've fought death for and I, I just, lost it.
I yelled.
I yelled her name, what I thought her name was. No. I yelled what I know her name is. I yelled her name and waved my arms and exclaimed: "It's me! A.J."
The people passing by looked. No one yells here, I now know it's prohibited, anything auditory that our ears are able to detect is contraband.
From the overpass to the vehicles, all of the passerby looked my way. It was eerie watching the heads of these people turn in unison. I froze. Then, something came after me.
An undercover administrator, or some endorser of bureaucratic enforcement took off. This man, or whatever creature he is, shed his skin and changed into this clear, gelatinous humanoid shape as I imagine is what happens to your body, just before incineration. The man glided my way and I too began to run when piercing sirens, beginning at a pitch I was unable to detect, crescendoed to one that paralyzed me.
In agony, I collapsed on the street as these awful, crippling noises continued. Just before I blacked out, I saw a woman and her daughter put on what I know now are ear muffs that subdue these awful sounds.
I awoke in an exam. room. A physician, in a forest green, tight fitting uniform, covered head to toe to avoid any contamination was prodding my temples as I came to. The man was holding a clipboard and he had me hooked up to very simple looking machines the size of cell phones. There were words on the tiny screens that I'd never seen before, numbers continuously running and changing. Every movement I made, the numbers would raise and lower.
"Why did you yell?" The doctor 'asked'. I didn't know what to tell him. I was delirious.
"How old are you?" I remained silent.
"Are you that ignorant to uniform, societal procedures that you'd violate an open area like that?" That's when I lost it.
"I don't fucking know." I yelled, physically creating audible words again. I stomped my feet like the brat that I am. My voice hurt the man. That's when I learned those living in this Universe, in this place have lesser developed ears that are sensitive to the human voice.
"Yes!" I yelled. "Yes, yes I am that ignorant that I will continue to disobey what is asked of me." The words I was saying did not seem to come from me, but from some outside aggression, withheld ever since I arrived here.
By now, the man was on the floor, fumbling with his ear muffs, one of his hands pressed to his ear, trying to keep timbre of my voice from replaying in his head. Over and over.
I took his ear muffs from him as the alarms went off. I saw him going for a switch near the door. I was able to keep the cries of the sirens from hindering me like they did before. I ran out into the hallway but forced myself to remain calm as the facility was sent into hysteria.
Men with ear muffs and sleek guns lined the halls along with the rest of the patients. Thinking back, it was a pretty funny looking scene, seeing those men, donning ear muffs, wielding guns.
Not every patient had their own set of ear muffs. This helped my escape as some of the guards tended to the less fortunate. I was able to sneak out, walking close behind a mother and her daughter, I posed as a part of their family and for a moment, it was nice to imagine myself as a son who would soon be consoled by his mother outside the doors. Instead, I was the reason they were being evacuated and I treated myself as so when I pushed past them, out of the doors, and ran out into the twilight beginning of the day.
By the third hue, or mid morning, I had found some fruit to eat by the yellow river just outside of the city. The fruit here has a mild kick to it, like a cross between a pepper and an apple. I could only eat a few bites as my empty stomach couldn't really handle probably, the most foreign of foods any human has ever consumed. It's an honor, I guess.
I don't want to go back there. But I must find her. I just have to let things settle, for a while. I could use someone to talk to. She was always the person I would confide in.
Hopefully the next time I write, our paths will have crossed again and our terms won't be as cross."
-A.J.
