Dating : They Cut Out My Tongue

In my youth, I’d often stow away in the cargo ships that landed on my planet. When they left, I’d be giddy and filled with awe as I found myself traveling through the cosmos. These were simpler times. Times of innocence and wonder. Times that I’d give anything to go back to.

But in adulthood, I became a slave to chains, shackled with a prison number etched into my neck. Prisoner 89001. The wonder I used to love has been swallowed up by my death sentence. In one day, I will be executed and all I can think about are my trips in the cargo ships.

The strange thing is, I’m not scared. However, I feel like I should be. I don’t feel any resentment towards the intergalactic committee of law for doing what they are doing. Though, I have every right to. All I feel is a sense of loss. And I’d argue that that feeling is worse than fear and resentment combined.

I’ve lost my freedom to speak and the impact of such a loss burns in my bones. They cut out my tongue and sentenced me to death for a thought crime. For having opinions of one’s oppressors, I now find myself staring into the face of my mortality. If someone would have told me that it was illegal to hold such negative views towards the committee — if someone told me that during space travel there are nanobots that probes the minds of travelers and spots dissent to authority — I would have plucked those thoughts out of my mind like a feather from a chicken. I would have done anything to avoid my tongue being the thing plucked out.

My crime was nothing but a mere insult to their egos. It was a disagreement made in the privacy of my mind. And for that, I am to die? For thought, I am to be rendered thoughtless? I don’t know what to think about that. I don’t know how to undress the unbelievably callous disregard for one’s autonomy. The most intimate lover a person has to lie with is their thoughts, and that was taken away from me. That, along with my voice!

And it is now as I sit shackled in my cell, I can’t say my name. Do you know what that does to a person? To not be able to utter the word that sums up their existence and glues his identity to his soul? It’s not just dehumanizing, it’s existential torture. I come into this world with a name, my name, something that I can unequivocally call mine and use as currency of expression. Though, I am to leave this world unable to take that with me. I can’t go into the void with the comfort of being me.

On this solemn night, I — like a kid singing himself to sleep after waking up from a nightmare — try whispering my name. The night before my execution I felt my tears fill the room and reach out to drown me as I desperately tried to get my name out.

The sound of muffled grunts and desperate cries are the only sounds that emitted from my cell. Throughout the cell block, I heard the other prisoners beg for my silence.

“For God’s sake, give it up already”.

“Shut up”

“If you don’t shut up I’m going to cut out more than your tongue!”

I understood their frustration. But I wish they understood mine. They could say their name. Utter it with the poise and fortitude a soldier would a salute. They could go into death with the firm understanding of their identity. Me…well you know.

The day of my execution I was taken to a room where I got to choose the method for my death. The irony of it was rather amusing. Here I was able to choose how to die, but in living I could not choose how to think. But towards the end of my life, I chose not to think about that too much. I was focused on remembering who I was — on hanging onto my name.

I chose to die via space walk. I figured I could go out like a star in the cosmos. There is wonder in that. A similar taste, the cargo ship trips used to give me as a kid. The other method was the painless — so they say — and fast method via lethal injection. There was no…wonder in that route, albeit a route that most chose.

When the guard led me to the ship’s airlock and took my chains off, I began to feel emotional. Again, it wasn’t fear, it was relief this time. I knew the struggle was going to be over soon and I couldn’t contain my tears. But the relief was quickly overshadowed by a comment the guard made.

“Do you have any last words?” He said wearing a grin that invoked nothing but rage in me. I saw red, I saw death, I saw my free hands wrapped around his neck.

If I had the ability to speak, my last words would have been,”Don’t be an asshole to the guy who is about to be executed and who is now unchained.” But for obvious reasons I couldn’t, instead, I rushed the guard, and let out a loud gargled scream — a battle cry — and in my beast like rage I clawed at his tongue.

When the other guards entered from the other room, I was holding his tongue in my hand. I could see the disgust on their faces grow when I put the tongue in my mouth. I know it wasn’t attached, but at that moment, for the first time since they cut out my tongue., I felt like I could say my name, I felt like I had a name. And as I was about to say it I saw a bright flash, then darkness.

The transition was like a blinking. I didn’t know death was so subtle. One moment, I’m shot, the next I’m floating in the expansive void. My body usncathed, tongue intact, I was whole in death.

It is in this form that I am able to tell you the story of my final days. To some, this story may be a tale of sadness, for others, it’s revenge. But I assure this is a story of knowing one’s name. It is your name that sets your life in motion. It is what you must protect as you journey through life.

As I float in this silent expanse, I know my name to be, “infinity”, and I say it with the utmost pride.