"Rick Tarot." I introduced myself in shortest I had ever done.

"I have seen you in local newspapers and TV interviews. You fought in Europe and Africa, didn’t you?" Dormer asked.

"Until I began to fight with myself." I looked at the waves of water.

Dormer threw a look at me, "What made you come here last evening?"

"The kid. He stopped me from killing myself thrice." I looked at his face, "And I would like to hear what had brought you here?"

"The thing which I buried yesterday. He used to ride a bicycle and used to shout, 'Scream Aloud' all the time. I took him for an omen and tried to scream but I couldn’t. Next day he said, 'It ain't so tough.' I failed. Then last day he said, 'Hear me speak. Don’t tie your tongue.' He was shouting to his friends but somehow I felt like his words were directed to me, not their friends."

"And now you can speak."

Dormer nodded, "But you weren’t the one with whom I wanted to speak. It was the toddler who gave me my voice back. He deserved to hear my first words. Now I don’t even remember what my first word was, just like a child…"

"He gave me my legs back." I had to say something there.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"But both of us couldn’t save him from dying. You had legs and I had voice. What a shame this is." Dormer interrupted.

"We had fear in common. You feared me and I feared you." I told him before I interrogated, "Do you want to avenge him then?"

"Avenge against the man who had killed him and disappeared in thin air? I didn’t come for it."

"Neither did I." I smiled as I sensed matter sorting out without fists and bloodsheds.

"Here's my proposal. This is something no one can explain. You want to forget it and so do I. I buried the kid in ground and I want you to bury his memory somewhere deep inside your old brain. He ain't not coming back from his grave and it would be better if he doesn’t come out of your mouth as well."

It was what I wanted to hear.

"I must agree with you." I giggled like a woman.

"You will have to. I expected you to do it. Or I would have been burying you right beside the kid's pit right now." Dormer said.

"I want your phone number. In case anything wrong happens." Dormer said when we were about to part.

I hesitated.

"It would be wiser, old man. Don’t think too much." He began to persuade me.

I didn’t thought anymore and gave him my number. He already had my name. He would have got my number even though I didn't give it to him. I asked after he finished noting my number in notebook. In spite of having a voice now, he still had a tiny notebook and pencil in his pocket. Dormer was running out of pages but there was enough space to write my number. He wrote my name under number and underlined it twice.

"What about yours? What's your number?" I questioned him.

"Mute people, who live alone, find no use of telephones in their houses." Dormer said and walked away.