What are the dead trying to say? I can see and hear Braxton everywhere. Meanwhile, Virgil… Well, I know he needs to go outside. But he won’t make a sound. The things we choose to hear. I listen to dead men, me and my boys. Virgil Won’t B Silent.
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Tale 263 ~Virgil Won’t B Silent~
Bless Me, Echo,
For I have sinned. Do I have time to make a list? It’s only 7:30 AM. Braxton’s gone, I’m afraid, The Matrix…
As the song goes, “First let me explain that I’m just a black man.” Nearly forty at that, Inspector. I’m getting old in the world, so I don’t hear so well. “When You Were Young?” Yeah, yeah, I hear you, Inspector. What I didn’t hear was Trinity from “The Matrix.”
“The Oracle told me that I would fall in love and that that man… the man that I loved would be The One.” The Matrix
I swear! I heard her say I would fall in love with a dead man. When it comes to my son, my Braxton. I have. He’s been gone 1144 days, and I haven’t stopped. Always and forever, Inspector. Please stop me before I go looking up every song about love. But if you want to know today’s song, it’s “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is.” You know, 15 Million Merits.
Love didn’t wake me up.
No, my dearest Inspector. It was fear—and not the fear of Virgil being sick again. My dream instead was simple. I was outside with Virgil, and this black cat I’d seen prowling around came at him. And I was paralyzed. Yet I quaked with fear for his young life.
Was it love when I heard him cry out to be saved? I’m surprised I heard him yelp at all.
That brings me to today. I may have heard Virgil’s call, but I always listen for B III. Well… except for when he needed me most. His voice, like my love, has only grown.
Madness! “Am I Wrong?” I hear Braxton in music. I see what he’d say in manuscripts. Dreaming on this mattress…
But I’ve never dreamt about Virgil until today when I was supposed to wake up…
Inspector, it could be so much worse. I dream about girls “laid” in all these books. The loaded-up binder and folder I once had of pinups and centerfolds. Girls lying on screen, ha-ha. Now they’re all on a flash drive or some hidden file. Because one living that wants me…
It’s better to have visions. There are many voracious fantasies online. Or let’s live to be victims of some zombie apocalypse so I can find one. Fewer options prove successful…
But not for V. I was dead when I found him, and now he dies. Not like that Echo, geez!
Both of us breathing, Inspector. Because Virgil Won’t B Silent.
1144 Days Without B III, Day 585 of Virgil’s Arrival
B.L.M. Braxton’s Life Matters,
Will