WE3 Words published and Unpublished

Chih-Chung Tsai

LTWR113: Rivera-Garza

WE:3

Words published and Unpublished:

The trinity of privacy

            The door slams. A voice shouts. A woman weeps. A fist slams against the wall. The husband hollers at her. The house is enveloped in chaos, a verbal storm, complete with lightning bolts of violent outbursts, and the thunder of raging words. But between their house and mine, crickets chirp in the warm air of a summer night. The house falls silent, and lights turn dark. The crickets win this night.

            The next morning, the husband waves to me as he clutches the mug of coffee, walking down the driveway to pick up the newspaper. On that newspaper he will read the same words I will read over my breakfast, the same words a million others will read. These are words that we will all share. At the office, I can talk to a coworker for hours about the words printed on the sports page, as we have our verbal brainstorm. But the next door husband will never realize that I hear his words, words that were meant for his wife. His words were as the headlines, splayed out before me.

            I take no pleasure in hearing these words of his. I’ve closed my window, buried myself under a pillow, yet these words reach me, like the rays of a dying sun. They are private words, words that mean nothing to me, but in their privacy, they are a roaring voice.

            I asked the wife one day if everything is all right. I told her that I can hear him yelling every night. She looked at the ground and told me that everything was fine. She will go home and one of these days, she will tell her husband what I just told her. Those words will not be private, for they will be shared with the husband, but they are not public, for no one knows of it but the three of us.

            Words are an intricate form, for they dance through the delicate relationships of context. They can be secluded by silence, or propagated by prevalence. They exist in one place, but disappear in another, shaping our ever evolving landscape of reality. Words are the reason that man cannot perceive an objective reality, but always subjective, bringing our surroundings under subjugation of judgments, decisions, and opinions. Or are words the symptoms of our inability to see objectively?

            His words to her, his words to me, my words to her, and her words to him. So far, we three pronouns, he, she, and me, have not yet spoken to the world. We have been the trinity of privacy, speaking amongst ourselves to protect this delicate prose of privacy. Who amongst us will dare to break this seal, to speak to the world that is blind to these words?

            We have no privacy anymore these days. In the postmodern landscape, like a city filled with the hard surfaces of skyscrapers and cement, sharp corners and edges, the sound of words reverberate and travel, continuing to the places where they are not warranted.

            One morning, the wife ran from the front door of their pristine house, tears streaming down her face. Her nightgown flowed in the morning wind, the hem flailing like a curtain trying to hide an open window during a storm. She wore a bruise on her face, a bruise that glowed dark with pain. She ran to me, and I lifted the phone. I spoke. Words that became public. Words that evolved into a court mandated restraining order. His face wore an expressionless mask. He was without words. He realized what he had done, and he cried out, “Why are you leaving me? I’ll never do it again. I’m SORRY! Don’t forsake me!”

            His words never grew. They never evolved. They fell dead, in the grave of silence. The world heard his anguished voice, but saw no words. She heard his words, but saw no grace. I heard his words, and tasted fury. Perhaps this is the reason words are kept so private, because they have the ability to unleash a myriad of unpredictable emotions, reactions that could never be gauged. And so in the public sphere, we exchange meaningless, arbitrary, objective words that we can all agree upon. Words like sports, like numbers and names, of places that bring pleasant memories. Words that we all know, and feel nothing about. These words are spoken by voices that we care nothing for, because they are not ours.