It usually starts with somebody saying something, a bit of dialogue already in progress.

Something like, “Teri, you’re not listening, this is important to me.”

Or, “Uuuuuuh I think he went that way, but that was like an hour ago.”

Or, “If I wanted you to know where I’ve been I would’ve told you.”

But this time it started with silence. The scene was already well underway, but Marla and Grace didn’t have anything to say.

They’d both been sitting in their respective dining chairs for about ten, fifteen minutes, not a word uttered, each intently focused on the other. Eyes locked.

Grace could see the moisture in Marla’s eyes, but she knew how dry her contacts could get, so she wasn’t ready to lay the blame on any potential emotional turmoil. Not yet.

Marla’s fountain pen rested across her middle finger and thumb, her index finger hooked over the top. She often held it like this, soaking in the placebo effect of writing, without the writing part.

She loved that pen. It had accompanied dozens of book signings, and she’d even gone viral at one point for dipping the tip into her little ink pot before making her mark — her signature signature, if you will.

The air had thickened, like invisible smoke, too heavy to breathe, too dense to break the tension with something stupid like words.

Grace hated that pen. She couldn’t really explain why, but she internally characterized her distaste as the same kind of resentment you might feel toward someone who keeps their childhood teddy bear at arm’s length, despite being well beyond the expected years. The pen was a security blanket, a crutch for discomfort, and it made Grace feel something that here they were, together, in the home they built, and something was happening under the hood that glued that obnoxious, outdated pen to her partner’s hand.

And still, no talk.

Marla’s stories often imagined a future that she liked to call “Post Tech”, where humans had progressed far enough so as not to need the devices we all rely on today. But of course there was tech, it was just biological modifications that could connect a person’s brain to the Net directly, so nothing external was necessary. No desktops, no phones, no screens. This is where Marla dreamed of being, where her curiosities about Grace’s mind could be investigated beyond words, where the neurological activity of emotions could be directly shared, without losing anything to translation. No need for words, never again.

But here am I, shackled to the present, where words comprise the entire utility belt of understanding, and I carry the lens to the place where Marla wishes to go.

Interestingly enough, Marla isn’t welcome inside Grace’s mind. They’d been together for over twelve years, seen all the clichéd ups and downs, weathered many storms. They were good. Naturally, Grace read everything Marla had ever published, dating back to all the silly periodicals in the Harvard Gazette that Marla kept in that oversized portfolio in the attic. She’d climbed up one January with the Christmas Lights and literally stumbled upon the old folio. Before she knew it she’d lost two hours to the deep dive on Marla’s past, feeling somewhat naughty for having discovered the works on her own, and more intimate for reasons she struggled to describe.

Words were not Grace’s thing.