Three months ago the Punishers cut my tongue off. Sincethen I've lost the contact with the normal world, with the worldof those for whom silence is a choice and not, as it is for me,an inevitable condition.
I have loved words and the art ofspeaking, and now I am punished because I tried in vain to fightthe Punishers with the weapons they most fear: words. Now theyhave made me a harmless woman, silent and invisible. Now I canlisten, feel emotions for the surrounding world which, despitethe presence of the Punishers, is still able to express itself.But they have barred me forever from giving voice to my thoughts,and the cry of my mind will no more become sound.
Thepunishment launched me into a silence much deeper than thatimposed upon me by dumbness. The injunction of the Punishersprevents me from all contact with normal people. The vest I mustwear is the unmistakable mark of my guilt and the sign ofdistance. Nobody can approach me; I cannot approach anyone. Icannot gesture, nor can I glance to draw somebody's attention;I'm not even allowed to express with my face the fear and anguishthat overwhelm me. Or rather, I may do it, but all my acts arelike signals of light cast against a black and insurmountablewall: all my gestures, all my attempts to communicate are doomedto fade into nothingness.
It's as if I were already dead,or had disappeared. When people see my black vest, they know thatit is no longer possible to do anything for me. Any kind ofreaction to my presence might be fatal for them. Anyone might bea spy, one of the Controllers, even one of the Punishers.Punishers love to hide themselves into the crowd. Or, at least,this is what is said, or, more likely, what they themselves havesucceeded in making us believe. But the possibility that even asingle Punisher might wander among us is enough to discourage anykind of initiative. A single gesture or a sympathetic glancewould be enough to decide their condemnation. They cannot wastetheir lives for so little. They don't want to fall into my samedarkness, into silence.

Thus, I have not existed forthree months. The last words addressed to me were those of thePunishers in the moments before the punishment, before theyslowly cut off my tongue. One of them explained in a calm voicethe cruel details which would have enriched my penalty. Idiscovered that there is no relation between my crime and theduration of my punishment. My sentence to wander as a ghost mayor may not be reversible. It might last one month or only oneday. Or maybe weeks, or years, or the rest of my life. But I'mnot allowed to know it. Its duration is written in the "Book ofPunishments" exhibited to the public at the Penalty Palace. Inthis way, those who are still able to read, those who knew me andhave been told of my punishment can satisfy their futilecuriosity. But they cannot speak with me and tell me whether mypenalty will last for the rest of my life or just for few moredays. And any attempt of mine to read the "Book" would be furtherpunished with death, a slow and atrocious death that I could seewritten under my name together with the duration of my actualpenalty.
In this way the penalty of silence is completeand perfect in its cruelty. My body is punished and even my soulcannot find peace in resignation. I can still delude myself andhope that the punishment will come to an end. I can think thatwithin a short time I'll throw away this black hooded vest whichrolls down to my ankles, and I'll be able to live a normal lifeagain. Or almost normal.
I've often thought of suicide asthe only possibility to escape from all this. Death as asolution, as the only form of peace that I'm still able tochoose. And before dying I'd keep the Punishers at bay for awhile by refusing my role in the game of hopes, illusions, andfears that until now they have forced me to accept. I'dtransgress their absurd rules, I'd throw myself towards the"Book" I'd know, at last, the duration of my punishment, I'd knowthe doom which awaits me because of this new guilt. And,eventually, I'd kill myself in front of them in some quick andpainless way before they could use me again to satisfy theirpleasure.
I've often thought of this. But it's not sosimple. It's not easy to find the necessary strength. It's noteasy to ignore that any day might be the last one of mypunishment. How can I kill myself and refuse this possibility?How can I forget this hope? And, after all, what would my suicidebe to the Punishers but an already foreseen variation of thepunishment created for me?

A nightmare recursobsessively during my nights. In the dream I pass the thresholdof the Penalty Palace and go next to the "Book" I open it lookingfor my name, but when I finally see it and my eyes run to thedate which marks the end of my penalty, I always discover thatI am at the last day of my punishment. Then, anguish shakes myheart; I try to shout, but the sounds don't come out of my mouth.In a desperate effort I open it more and more, and suddenly anenormous red tongue slides over my lips, lucid with saliva, sobig that it prevents me from breathing. It darts in the air,wriggling like a strange, viscid animal, and I cannot control itsmovements. I grasp it with my hands trying to roll it and put itback into my mouth, but it slips away from my fingers. Then,while I shake my head up and down and choke and feel the bloodquivering violently at my temples, I see the guards coming downthe stairs of the Palace. They have been warned of my presencenear the "Book" by the electronic bracelet sealed around mywrist. I'm terrified. I've had the time to read my newcondemnation and I know that it's horrible, inhuman: they cometo capture me and bring me into the Penalty Palace for theTorture of the Liquids. Without thinking of the futility of mygesture, I try to escape from them, but my tongue covers my eyesand after a few steps I stumble and fall on the floor and soonthe rude hands of the guards grab and clamp my arms violently.
My cry wakes me; I find myself lying on my cot, in asweat, frightened, my mouth wide open seeking air, my handsgrasping in the darkness around my face, trying to tear off thatnow invisible tongue that filled my mouth in my sleep.

During the first days of my punishment I began to wander amongthe crowd. Dismayed. With no reason to go on. I slowly walkedalong the streets of the city, crossed the bridges on the canals.I used to spend a long time watching the movement of the lightsbroken in the water, or the shaking of the bare branches in thewind. When I was tired I sat somewhere until the chill pushed meto wander again without purpose. I watched people for hours. Eachof them seemed to have a precise direction, an activity, a goal.They walked around me; they ignored me. The chill condensed theirbreaths. Mine too. It was the only thing that could come out ofmy mouth: a white puff, an empty cloud. I counted heads andbodies; I was flooded with fragments of voices and shouts allaround me. I could distil each of their frequencies, sounds thatcame towards me and faded away, wonderful sounds, sweet andincredible, so simple, so normal.
However, as days passedby, even those endless walks lost the little meaning they had.Boredom overwhelmed me. To others' eyes I didn't exist. Dayrepeated themselves all alike. One after the other, one after theother. What could I do? How can an invisible being spend hertime?
Then fear came. Sometimes, when I was in thestreets, especially when the sun suddenly came out from theclouds and a flame of light wrapped every object and everyperson, I found myself looking around too carefully. Little bylittle the details became more accessible: edges, borders,clefts, complex surfaces emerged to my sight as if my eyes werechanged into the magnifying lenses of a microscope. It was as ifthe world had suddenly exploded, become gigantic, richer. Inthose moments all things filled my mind; every object had asmell, a fragrance, a special light, a shining, a color...
It was then that I started being frightened. As the dayspassed, the call of particulars became more and more insistent.More and more I had the sensation that I could no longer move.Objects were becoming too important; I felt that I could losemyself in each of them; each of them could capture me. It was asif things, knowing the silence that had been imposed upon me,wanted to speak to me, to open themselves to me, to conveymessages normally hidden. And all this frightened me, because Irealized that that was the first consequence of silence, ofdistance; that was the first sign of the second fall, the onetowards madness, the absolute distance.

Maybe it wasbecause I wanted to escape from the obsessive voice ofparticulars that I transformed the night and the most dangerousareas of the city into the dimensions that best shelter my life.Often I spend the day in my room, in darkness. I go out whennight comes. Usually I go towards the streets that face thecanals. Here the shining lights disappear, the contours of thingsshade, people are different; the expressions on their faceschange, the reflections in their eyes change. Shadowspredominate; there are sullen sounds and whispered words. In thedarkness near the water or in the tunnels below the water, thereare the grim rooms where people get drunk. Dim lights areswitched on, red and blue. Flickering flames of candles createdancing shadows and uncertain figures.
This is the worldwhere even the Punishers are afraid to venture or to installtheir controlling machines. Or maybe where the Punishers bettercontrol our instincts by giving us the illusion of freedom. Here, night after night, men and women become violent animals;in alcohol and anonymous sex they seek shelter from the feardominating them during the day. Strong smells of food mingle inthe air and the voices become hoarse laughs and shouts withoutidentity. Here there is no more space for particulars; there isno time for them, there is no possibility. Here particularsplunge into darkness, zeroed, annihilated, vanished. But I haveno choice: this is the only world where I can still hope tomaintain my sanity; this is the only world where somebody canstill cast a glance at me, or where I can listen to a few wordsaddressed to me, even when they are the words mumbled by someunknown drunk man into whose arms I throw my body for an hour.
But there is also another and more important reason fortransforming the night into my day and this part of the city intomy city. A reason that has kindled my hope and has pushed backthe idea of suicide: the secret meetings of the hooded ones.Here, near the water, where narrow alleyways draw out complexnetworks of streets, I recently discovered the presence of thehooded ones. Or, more likely, they let me discover theirexistence. They are like me: they are victims of the Punishers'cruelty and share the punishment of silence. They know it well,they deeply understand its meaning and its consequences. That'swhy they meet. And that's why it is with them that I might havethe chance for a real exchange of ideas, different from the shortand casual communication I have when I abandon myself to theillusory satisfaction of sex.
In these streets I saw themfirst, and here I come back looking for them. Even tonight, now.While I walk next to the sewers, big black rats wriggle betweenmy legs with rustling sounds. They are the lords of the night,the real owners of this part of the city. Their squeaks pursueme, I perceive their disgusting smells, I shake with fear at theidea that they could cling to the border of my vest, climb mylegs, cling to my flesh with their teeth. This thought terrifiesme and I pay too much attention to my steps and get lost in thislabyrinth of dark streets. But it doesn't really matter; by nowthe hooded ones know about me; they will look for me as they didthe other times, they will find me. I only need to remain in thisarea.
I wait for them to show themselves. I move aroundsearching a larger place where I can be easily seen. I find asmall square. I stop. I can only wait now. I only hope that theywill find me first, before the followers of the Sect of the Wall.It is believed this is their kingdom, but it is not possible toknow exactly where they live or operate, or how many they are.I only know about their fame, their cruelty that people sayrivals the Punishers'. As a matter of fact, it is not even knownwhether they really exist or are just another rumor the Punishershave spread to discourage us from going in areas more difficultto control. I don't know. Nevertheless, I remember when peoplefound in this quarter the bodies of those girls. The way theirfaces were smashed... their eyes... I shudder. To wait in thedarkness frightens me. But I must wait. I don't even know whereI am. I can only wait for the hooded ones...

I wait fora long time and, at last, I see them. They are three this time;in the darkness I can scarcely distinguish their black vests; Irecognize them from their gliding, like ghosts. I wave and oneof them answers me tracing a sign in the air with its hand. Theystop and wait for me to approach. I cover my head with the hoodand go close to them. When they take the road again, I followthem; we walk flattened to the buildings. After a while, we enterinto the tunnel under the Wall of the city; the light is feeble,and we can hardly perceive the contours of the tunnel. The smellof mold floods us mixing in pungent combinations with urine.
When we arrive at the place chosen for the meeting the silenceis perfect. The others sit at the tables. The lights of the oillamps illuminate the frenetic movements of their hands andamplify with shadows the dance of their fingers.
Threeweeks have passed since I discovered the existence of thesemeetings. Since then, I have been trying to learn the languageof gestures to disclose the meanings held in the flex of onehand, in a folded wrist, in a rapid click of fingers. It seemsthat only after long practice is it possible to translate ideasand thoughts into signs. I think I understand that in the pastthe hooded ones possessed a book on the language of gestures;but, for reasons that I'm not sure of, this book no longerexists. Maybe it dissolved little by little under the fingers ofall those who used it. Or maybe someone with the book wasarrested before he could give it back, and now the book is in thehands of the Punishers. Maybe. But I doubt that this book everexisted. Apart from the secret microfilms that I consulted whenI still worked at the Palace of Justice and Culture, the onlytext I ever had the chance to see is the "Book of Punishments".Maybe the book on the language of gestures is just a legend; oneof those books existing only in the tales of those old enough toremember the times when books were read and paper was stillproduced, before the Punishers forbade its use.
I don'tknow, it's not clear, I cannot really understand what the hoodedones want to tell me. For the moment, my hands, primitiveinstruments not trained to reproduce the hundreds of nuances inthe position of a nail or in the distance between two fingers,can only convey the emptiness generated by my confused movements.My fingers reproduce only bits of thoughts, fragments ofsentences. But the idea that I can talk again, even though withthis silent language, has revived my hopes. One day I will knowthose signs, one day I will finally be able to communicate theanguish of silence, the call of madness...
However, the longer time passes the more I feel that there issomething strange in our meetings. It seems to me that the codesgoverning this language are excessively complex; I feel that eventhose who have longer tolerated the punishment and should beexperts, sometimes find difficult to express themselves. It isas if the multiplicity of signs is infinite; as if the rulescontrolling our mute dialogues change like fluid objects, dayafter day, or even in the course of the same conversation.
For a long time I have thought about this, and I cannot stopmyself from thinking that the Punishers themselves are theinventors of these absurd codes. Sometimes I even suspect thatthese meetings that we deem to be secret, are only another cruelcomponent of the game the Punishers are playing with our lives.I can almost imagine their pleasure at our struggle againstsilence. I can almost see them masked like us, with long vestsand hoods. They come in small groups to the place chosen for themeeting; they mingle with us, sit at the tables with us, andstart with their fingers a silent dialogue, using those signsthat we already know. And, as they talk, I see them add, littleby little, new conflicting signs to the old ones, in order toconfuse us and break down our communication.
Even now,while I sit at this table waiting for my instructor, it is notdifficult for me to think of them among us. Anybody can be oneof them. Perhaps my master; maybe this figure coming towards me.There is no way to prove it. There is no reason to prove it.
This thought fills me with sadness. I look around me and I seeus, poor fool mute phantoms, vainly groping for a sense or amessage hidden in those signs. We go on waving our fingers in theair without really understanding each other, without trulyspeaking. We go on deluding ourselves to be able to say thingsand read in others' gestures confirmations of what we have said.Doubtful, uncertain about the meaning of the signs, but alwaysanxious to learn the new ones, with the hope to possess, one day,the whole system, and to finally understand, to speak finally,to communicate finally as persons, as living beings.