by Adam Thorpe
A flush of panic. How can you tell someone you are dumb?
He pointed to his open mouth, like a bad mime. Even his throat wouldn’t move to make noises.
‘If we had tongues to speak,’ said Eddie, his own lips trembling, his cheeks wet. He wasn’t looking at Jonathan, who had bitten his tongue and drawn blood without knowing it. ‘If only we had tongues and we could speak, something something something. And then she hurled it into the sea.’
And Jonathan felt himself being hurled, too, and the waters rushing in where there should have been air and laughter and fame.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author is grateful to the editors of the following publications, in which some of these stories first appeared: Areté, Carlos, the Guardian, A New Book of Contemporary British Stories (Perspective), New Writing 9 (Vintage). Versions of ‘You Never’, ‘The Concert Interval’, ‘Bright-Green Trainers’ and ‘Karaoke’ were first commissioned for broadcast by BBC Radio. ‘The Silence’ was commissioned for Radio 3’s The Verb/Tate Britain Short Story Competition.
