Static Becomes a Relic Here

A town’s silence hardens into resin, and an archivist catalogs its unsaid words.

The town of Last Word drowned at dawn. Not in water, but in the weight of swallowed sentences. The postmaster’s I’m leaving, the widow’s I killed the roses, the child’s I want to stay small—they pooled in the streets, hardening into black resin. By noon, the church bells were silent, their bronze furred with rust.

You’re the archivist hired to catalog the wreck. Your tools: a bone scalpel, a tape recorder that only plays backward, and a prescription bottle labeled For the Silence After. The mayor warns, Don’t touch the resin. It’s carcinogenic to hope. But you’ve worn no gloves since your mother died with I’m sorry still in her mouth, the words lodged in your throat like fishhooks.

The first exhibit: A diner booth. A ring glints on the table, a silver O around a ketchup stain. The seat exhales when you sit. The tape recorder whines. You press play and hear a voice say, Yes, then a wet gulp—like a man drowning in his own apology. You label the vial Almost Always.

In the schoolhouse, third-row desk, you find the scream of a girl who outscored her brother. The chalkboard reads I’m Sorry in perfect cursive. You chip a fragment into a pillbox. It dissolves on your tongue like sugar. Your hand writes I’m sorry in the margins of your notes for hours.

Night falls. The resin hardens into a mirror. Your reflection wears your mother’s mouth. As if naming their silence will silence yours, it says. You smash the glass. The shards sprout lilacs—the same ones she planted the day your father left.

At the edge of town, a phone booth glows. Inside, a rotary phone rings. You answer. This is your liver calling, says a voice. I’ve filtered your father’s rage for 30 years. I’d like to retire. You hang up. When you pocket the receiver, your fingertips blister, then crack open like resinous fruit.

The mayor finds you at dawn, knee-deep in resin. Your scalp aches from the bleach of grief. Your pockets sag with vials of Almost, Never, Enough. It’s done, you say. The museum’s ready. He asks the ticket price. You hand him your mother’s unfinished I’m sorry. Admission is a verb, you say.

Opening day. Tourists gawk at the curated rot: love letters that sprout thorns, hydrants weeping bourbon. A child licks resin off the diner booth. By dusk, she’s mute. Her parents call lawyers. The mayor razes the exhibit, builds a parking lot.

You leave at midnight. The road out of town cracks like a spine. In the rearview, Last Word shrinks to a matchstick. The tape recorder plays backward: Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

Years later, you work at a gas station. A man buys gum, drops a postcard. A photo of the phone booth, now a hive. On the back: Breathe. You swallow it. That night, your sink clogs with resin. The pipes hum I’m sorry. You laugh. The resin in your chest doesn’t.