Ariel’s Broken Jukebox Pt.5 - Gaslighting and the Fingerless Prince

What is it like to lose a voice?

A lot of people wondered when they heard I had been gaslit for three years.

Well, it's both simple and complex, like an equation not everyone can solve. It was like death, yet it felt alive. Gaslit people go to work, have fun, work out, meet family and friends.

But to do so, they must do without a voice box. They might use an AI program to speak for them. Or they could use their abusers, who know how to talk to them well. In that case they speak but not their minds, they laugh but not at the jokes ty find funny, they attend parties and gatherings, they buy clothes, cut their hair, shave their legs, but they are still not them, even eating their favorite ice-cream bowl or lying lazily by the sea.

Sounds complex? Well...let me tell you a story about a prince who was everything everybody wanted him to be, but not himself when he agreed to lose his voice.

Part IV

"The prince became hollow. The cloak was all there was to him. It was this and his successes in the kingdom. As much as possible, he tried to retain some of his former self. He dug a dam for an impoverished village. He bought a horse for an old farmer who placed a printed ad on the Kingdom Broadcast Noteboard to plead for money since his old horse died and he couldn't feed his wife or pay the apothecary fees. But all his efforts ended in vain. His heart wasn’t in anything he did.

It wasn't about excelling or succeeding at the noblemen's royal court. It wasn't about golf or crucial conversations at banquets. It wasn't about mulling wine or walking with an enormous cavalcade behind him. It wasn't the cloak that floated behind his back like a regal creature that added to his false mystery. It was about food tasting like ashes even as he thrived in sword fights with cousins and brothers alike. It was about his being both visible and invisible, blank and occupied, starved and stuffed to the bone, drowning and knee-deep in shallow waters. The prince evaded his gastronomic and erotic pleasures, he could woe any girl he wanted, he could get the world to kneel at his feet, all thanks to the sorcerer's tactful plan of hiding in plain sight, but he couldn't do anything.

He could still hear the piano inside him sometimes, like an old demon from an abandoned well. Every time he heard it, something maddening stirred inside him, and drove him to drown his sorrows in opium that he took tiny drops of late at night. The drink would burn his insides and fill him with raw bitterness, but elate him to a degree of nirvana unlike anything he has experienced, followed by a nimble feeling of sedating calmness. Like someone had filled his mouth with cotton, removed his intestines and wrapped him in linen. He was mummified in the opioid cocoon until the next morning. However, he made sure never to drink it in front of the sorcerer, or else he'd face another fit of rage from him, the least thing he wanted.

The sorcerer would know, though. The prince was surprised at how close he and the sorcerer got. Too close that it made him uncomfortable at times. And the scary thing was that there was no one to talk to about it. No one would believe him, or even sympathize with him, so what if the sorcerer and he were inseparable? What was the problem with that? The problem was that he felt the sorcerer under his skin, sometimes hearing his thoughts more than his own. Actually most times. Like that time he tried to kiss one of the nobles. The boy was wonderful looking, and he was giggling shyly as the prince entered a party, strong and tall in his cloak and his face cloth shield. The young noble's shyness gave the prince fake swagger and he walked up to the boy. This made the boy curl inwards even further. He dragged the boy into the corner and revealed his face. After months of hiding, people gasped when they finally saw how firm and angular his face was, his eyes solemn, his gaze infernal. There was a brutality to him that the cloak allowed him, while his insides usually turned into porridge. But as he stepped closer, held the boy's chin in his hand, started to kiss him, he could hear the sorcerer's scolding as he told him that he should not be involved in this complex relationship at the time. His hand fell to his side, and he walked away, shameful as ever. He realized that he really felt shameful because he could imagine the sorcerer's reaction when he told him the story, not because of how humiliating the situation made him feel.

That brought him to the big question. Why did he have to tell the sorcerer? It was beyond him, like he was bound to a rock by the sea. The tide pulled him inward, but his chains were stronger than the lure. Despite his desire to keep a piece of his life to himself, his tongue took over, submitting his every truth to the sorcerer. He recounted every detail of his day before dinner, from the biggest to the smallest intricate thought. The sorcerer would always listen patiently, even if the prince absentmindedly recounted an old tale, or mourned something he had experienced in the past. However, the sorcerer never showed boredom or unrest. He always had something to say, and of course, it inevitably ended up being the prince's fault. Even thoughts could be wrong, a whisper, a whimper, a remark said in the wrong place, a shift of the knees, or a slump of the shoulder. The sorcerer was strict about the prince's body language and followed the rules. Damn did he obey them! He followed the rules until there was no bone left in him to rebel.

It wasn't until that day, when the prince found himself visiting the piano's old hiding place. He didn't know why he did what he did. But it was stronger than him. There were days like that, when the pull of the tide was gravitational and violent. He was weak, unable to fight this part inside himself. Yes, this part diminished as the days passed by, but it was there. The voice was hushed and awkward, like it didn't belong there or should be there in the first place, but it was present, vibrant and solid like the sun or the moon or any celestial body in between. He stepped over to the piano, surprised to find it in its resting place, unmarked, untainted, unlike his life that had been toyed with and turned upside down. There was stability and solidity about the piano. And despite all his efforts to suppress it, the prince trembled with desire. He even felt his first boner in months."