Malagash 1.3 (Patreon)

I record my father’s voice on my phone. Audio, but no video. I’m too worried about the slightness of his arms, the paleness of his skin. I record his voice because his voice still sounds right. He sounds like my father, and it is my father I want to remember.

I record him on every visit. His jokes and laughter. His calm acceptance of death. His puns. The creak in his words when he talks about my little brother, the waif. When he talks about my mother. About me. I have never listened to anything as closely as I listen to these recordings. The ups and downs of tone. The reason for every small inflection. There’s so much meaning in every stupid little thing we say.

Sometimes I hold the phone in my hand. Sometimes I set it on the table, or on the bed beside him. So the sound quality varies. It can make him feel far away, when I listen at home. Like his voice is coming to me from behind a thick hanging curtain. But that is only because he’s still alive. When he is gone, these recordings will sound closer.

I record everything. Then I copy everything to a laptop that I’ve spray-painted gold. On the laptop’s lid, I’ve stencilled an old-fashioned cross in white. I know absolutely nothing about religion. This has nothing to do with religion.

I am thorough with my recordings, but organization is a struggle. I divide them into phrases, sentences. Each recording sliced into its parts. Sometimes just single words or sounds. Sometimes just a laugh. I have so many variations of his laugh.      

       quick_laugh.wav

       sharp_final_laugh.wav

       long_rolling_laughter.wav

       longer_laugh_together_mom.wav

       sad_laugh.wav

       unexpected_laugh.wav

       laugh_for_me.wav

But the most important thing is my father’s voice. The words.

       poetic.wav

       youre_my_daughter.wav

       sunday.wav

       sunday_sunday_sunday_monster_truck.wav

       birds_and_bees.wav

       sleepy_town_blanket.wav

       handsome_old.wav

       chickens.wav

       a_leaf.wav

“A weight will lift,” he says. “A leaf will fall.” I am collecting my father’s words. “Fresh white snow will blanket this whole sleepy town.”

I built a database to keep track of it all. Every file gets an entry in the database. Each filename was associated with a written transcription and with a text field where I tried to describe the context. But that wasn’t enough. So I added text fields for content, for tone, for facial expression. There’s so much that needs to be remembered. Bemusement. Mock outrage. Metaphor. It is an unusable mess of data.

At night, I play long nonsense loops of his voice to myself before I fall asleep. Like a bedtime story. Like a lullaby.

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In the month leading up to the publication of my novel Malagash (Oct 3rd! Click here to pre-order or order it from your local bookstore.) I am going to be posting chapters here, in the hopes that you like it!