Isolation By Nicolette Wong

In isolation you speak into the microphone and I watch the frequency of your soul darting on a screen. You are growing fainter—even your overt British accent starts to trail off into an indistinguishable flatness. I have forgotten: your concentration rarely translates into strength. Your lip noise tells me you need to drink some water. You brought a bottle of tea. In that dryness lives the memory of us choking underneath a black umbrella, unable to escape from the gloom you had perfectly carved out for us. I hear you swallow and it makes me feel pretty flat myself. ‘Ready?’ I ask. You give an imaginary nod. When the rustle of the paper ceases you speak again. I am in the control room, flipping switches against the volume of you. Where I am now is a place of absorption and diffusion. I am padded and safeguarded. ‘Sorry I made a mistake. Can we go back to the last line?’ you ask. ‘We’re good to go when you are.’ You breathe and sniff. Someone brought you in here so you could stretch yourself and chase your dream. Your voice births a strangeness that you have just come to discover: a new seed to sprout. You and I are divided in an enclosed room, imagining each other in disrupted silence. ‘I quite liked it,’ you say when we finish the recording. It is just work for me.

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