The Five Senses:

Sound

Livi

The boy stared at me, then slowly regained himself and sneered. He didn’t say anything, though for a moment it looked as if his mouth wanted to.

Not the rest of him, just his mouth.

Like it wanted to run off his body, whisper its secrets to me, then scurry back to being a whole with him. But it didn’t, because it couldn’t on its own, and he wouldn’t let it. Instead it turned crueler.

I didn’t want to look at that mouth, that mean little mouth that wasn’t free to do what it wanted. Because the boy controlled it, because it was part of him, because bodies are subject to their owners will.

Then he did speak, but some trick let me know the words he spat out weren’t the words his mouth wanted to give me. That was okay; as long as I know the mouth didn’t want to.

Those words never reached my ears. I wonder sometimes if I was like him, and my ears wanted to hear but I denied them. In my dreams, they didn’t. Want to hear, that is. It makes me glad, that they didn’t, because I maybe wanted to hear the words of the boy that weren’t the words of the mouth. But I didn’t want to do that to the mouth. Those weren’t the words it wanted me to hear, so I wouldn’t hear them.

So I stared, as he had stared at me as before, before his face turned mean.

The mouth on his face moved against its will; I stood unmovable. I desperately wished it knew I didn’t hear for its sake. Not mine.

Then that cruel, cruel sneer disappeared, and confusion reigned on his features. Except his mouth-it took advantage of his lax notice and smiled at me. Gladness filled my heart, starting from my ears. And,

I smiled back.

The stare returned, and if I stayed in front of the unknowing boy it would cycle back to that unfortunate face that trapped the dear mouth. So I left. It couldn’t be helped; I loved his mouth and would do anything for it. Only because his mouth loved me first.