A Soundless Exchange

By Hoffman Kadaisy

He and she may be in love, yet neither one has ever heard the other’s voice. Homeschooled and living her entire life in a wheelchair, she was born without the ability to ever hear or speak. When she miraculously saves his life, she is forced to share a beautiful secret about herself. Troubled by his infamous past, he risks telling her the truth of who he really is. They learn to understand each other beyond words as they experience the power of a soundless exchange.

*A super villain origin love story
* Hoffman Kadaisy was schooled by one of the top-ten Sci Fi writers living today, trained by the writer of Batman: Arkham Origins as well as the historical fiction and sci fi phenomenon known as Assassin’s Creed.
*4 years of research and study under award-winning writers, including Paul Muldoon (Pulitzer winner for poetry), Joyce Carol Oates (3-time Pulitzer nominee for fiction), and Christina Lazaridi (academy award nominee screenwriter).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hoffman Kadaisy
• Release date: Jul 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9780989720304

Hoffman Kadaisy

Hoffman Kadaisy is the pen name of Keith Mathewson, a graduate from Princeton University.

Book preview

A Soundless Exchange

The characters , incidents, and stories within this novel are complete fiction. Any parallels of this fiction with real places, events, or people are pure coincidence.

A Soundless Exchange: Book One

Published by HK Pollen

Copyright 2016 by Hoffman Kadaisy (Keith Mathewson)

All rights reserved.

The name "HK Pollen as well as the phrase A Soundless Exchange and all associated artwork, including the Kadaisy chromosome symbol, are trademarks owned by Keith Mathewson. All characters, including the name Hoffman Kadaisy" and the Limeniph family name, their distinctive likeness, and related elements, are trademarks owned by Keith Mathewson. Without permission in writing from the author, this e-book is not to be reproduced in any form, whether by electronic or mechanical means, including archives and other information retrieval systems. The only exception applies to short excerpts quoted in a review.

Credits

Written and Created by Keith Mathewson

(Hoffman Kadaisy)

Concept Designer, Keith Mathewson

Book Cover Artist, Mitchell Klein

Developmental Editor, Laura Petrella

Developmental Editor, Victoria Zorzoli

Developmental Editor, Will Martinez

Copy Editor, Laura Petrella

ISBN: 978-0-9897203-0-4

A Soundless Exchange

Hoffman Kadaisy

"Sometimes , when the corn was planted it shot up too soon. The roots hadn’t taken hold so the stalk couldn’t support its own weight. The corn would turn sour. I don’t know if Clark knew exactly how lucky he was growing up in a place like Smallville."

—Jonathan Kent

Jeph Loeb, Superman for All Seasons

Table of Contents

Prologue

News

Mementos

The American Adam

Chapters

One

"They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world."

Psalms 19:3–4

Two

"The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau."

Genesis 25:25

Three

"But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep."

Genesis 2:20–21

Four

"The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent."

Exodus 14:14

Five

"I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires."

Song of Solomon 2:7

Six

"He made my feet like the feet of a deer, and set me upon high places."

Psalms 18:33

Seven

"Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night."

Psalms 17:3

Eight

"By the sweat of your brow shall you eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken: for dust you are and to dust you will return."

Genesis 3:19

Nine

"Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize."

1 Corinthians 9:26–27

Ten

"This bit of masked mischief which had stolen his heart as well as my own."

Sterling North, Rascal

Eleven

"They blended religion and art and science because, at base, science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle. They never let science crush the aesthetic and the beautiful. It’s all simply a matter of degree."

Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

Twelve

"I nam’d them, as they pass’d, and understood

Thir Nature, with such knowledge God endued

My sudden apprehension"

John Milton , Paradise Lost

Thirteen

"Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded forever."

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Fourteen

"Teach me and I will be silent."

Job 6:24

Fifteen

"To thee and to thy race I give; as lords possess it and reign over every living creature ."

Genesis 1:28

Sixteen

"As she breathed her last—for she was dying—she named her son Ben-Oni. But his father named him Benjamin."

Genesis 35:18

Seventeen

"And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering of the cave."

1 Kings 19:12–13

Eighteen

"A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love."

Proverbs 5:19

Nineteen

"Most of all, more than anything else, there was the delightful euphoria of weightlessness."

Isaac Asimov, The Martian Way

Twenty

"Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give people in exchange for you, nations in exchange for your life."

Isaiah 43:4

Twenty-One

"In the Lord put I my trust: how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?"

Psalms 11:1

Twenty-Two

"And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was a silence in heaven about the space of half an hour."

Revelation 8:1

Twenty-Three

"The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown."

Genesis 6:4

Twenty-Four

"Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears, like chaff swirling from a threshing floor, like smoke escaping through a window."

Hosea 13:3

Epilogue

"‘Look, I am about to die,’ Esau said. ‘What good is the birthright to me?’ But Jacob said, ‘Swear to me first.’ So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob."

Genesis 25:32–33

Prologue

Through the night, the boy ran from the masked man in a pea coat. The grass of an athletic field passed underneath their feet. The small-framed boy glanced back at his pursuer and tightened the hood that concealed his face. He sprinted straight for the end of the football field, marked by a set of tennis courts surrounded by a chain link fence with a ripped green tarp . The cold air burned his lungs. The vapor he exhaled through his panicked mouth changed form when he gritted his teeth as the barbed wire came into view.

Who puts barbed wire on a fence surrounding a tennis court? It was the last thing you would expect, until you saw the graffiti. The thing was, the tagging didn’t look gang related. It was too sloppy to be a mural, even for semi-stenciled spray paint, but it was everywhere, which might not have been so unusual if it didn’t look like it all belonged to the same hand. Along the court floors, the graffiti was a map of recognizable figures and symbols, each one famous, trademarked, except they were distorted in some way. Whether it was ethics or geometrics, every logo and every mascot was perverted and dissected to the degree of distasteful parody, all in relation to each other for one common design, like they were prisoners of the same ceremonial circus of pain. Except there was no ringmaster. Each figure wielded a whip, with limbs turned torture tools.

It was doubtful anyone could take this much in amid an imminent kidnapping. But stranger things have been reported. When the mind senses it is about to meet its end and it rebels against this powerful moment, the hiss of encroaching purposelessness, it reminds itself that if it does survive, it will have captured every detail to learn from its eluded death.

The boy stopped running and stood still. He felt his skull pulse like a timer counting down to detonation. Now was the time to capture every last detail. His eyes were moving so fast his pupils trembled with his fingers that branched out for a solution, a way of escape. Now was not the time for fearful fatigue. Yes, he was a fool to choose this open field; the man in the black ski mask had gained dozens of yards on him without having to contend with the advantageous agility of a small body in tight spaces. But the boy was at least smart enough to know what he had to do to live long enough to make another mistake. So he ran straight for the ski mask.

It was the last thing anyone would have done, even in the face of a dead end. But here, it appeared, the dead end was anything but physical: you can’t touch the mental maze that panic sets before you. He seemed to run faster, as if he had been pulled by downhill gravity, a beckoning from the ski mask.

There was no way of knowing if or when the boy would stop running. There were so many emotions on his face as he confronted his attacker that if it weren’t for the ski mask, it would have been easy to imagine something very different. He could’ve been a son sprinting to greet his father who had served long and returned unharmed.

The boy stopped, slid, and spun. The man in the mask reached out. His left hand swatted the tight hood off the boy’s head. The boy forgot to crouch when he spun, so the man’s right hand did worse.

His fingers touched the boy’s hair—that must have been what the hood was for: protection—and the man’s hand passed through the hair as if he were deciding which petal to pluck from a wild daisy. Time waited for him to admire the harp strings, what he must have seen and heard when his fingers grazed the lovely locks of hair. When he came upon the last string, the petal of his choosing, he clenched onto it with half a handgrip.

At first, the boy resisted with all his might. But it was not enough. So he roared like an animal, and the man’s strength became the boy’s strength. He gave in to the pull of his hair, using it to propel his elbows backward into the man’s gut, bending the attacker forward, bringing the ski mask within reach. The boy swung his head back into the man’s chin. Snipped by teeth, a sliver of the man’s tongue flew off and stuck to the shoulder of the boy.

The man didn’t scream. He just grinned through the blood that dripped onto the collar of his pea coat. It was as if he were proud, almost like he expected this. But the proud pain loosened his grip, and this was the boy’s chance. The boy yelled through the fire that seared his scalp as he pulled against the half grip on his hair and clawed his fingernails into the man’s hand.

The man in the ski mask was wearing such dark clothing that at times, he seemed invisible, so the boy appeared to levitate by his own violence. When you feel gravity leaving you and a stronger force unseating it, dwarfing your frame with this thing, this terrible lifting off the ground, you grip the earth by your toes, because you know once your feet leave the ground, they might not touch this planet again —you know that as you are being lifted in an abduction, all promises and laws become meaningless. This is the thing to dread, not the leaden fear that poisoned your blood, coiling around your muscles. You become reduced to an animal living in a human’s world. Or some might just say, a caged human, violated by something you always heard about but never thought you would encounter in your waking life.

How could another human being have done this to me? is not the question you want to ask. What comes after this question is so pervasive it’s invasive, the alienation of your own species, the origin of a universal myth, a contagious fantasy that each monster transmits when he lives out his own, what the sane are content to call science fiction. When the earliest humans became aware of the first body to ever go missing, there was an outcry. The mind demanded allegory. And science fiction was born.

Nothing in this world could ever do this to me. No beast, no human, just cold intelligence. And maybe there are worse things that we could deny than what the man in the ski mask must have enjoyed: human potential.

Any one of these manic thoughts could have inspired the man in the ski mask. Maybe this was how he saw himself, his second role after every Friday night’s rehearsal when he finished instructing pallbearers in safety technique. Or perhaps his occupation had nothing to do with carrying coffins. He just filled them. Like he filled silence with his presence, the essence of his history could swallow yours.

The boy leaned forward at a great angle while the man smiled through the blood dripping from his tongue. He heard the follicles snapping on the back of the boy’s head. If the child didn’t survive, the pain would be the man’s to remember. But if his victim lived, the memory would have to be shared with the boy . Was that what the man in the ski mask was after, a selfish desire for a memory so singular that it would take two people to make it and one to keep it to himself? An enigmatic power so fragile, like Samson’s hair, that if ever spoken, it would fade like any other memory?

Whatever the reason, it was worth more than one kick to the ribs. On the second kick, the boy launched forward off the man’s bent knees, and the hand with the hair fell back as the child sprinted off. If only the man’s knees hadn’t been bent at that second, they might’ve broken. As he ran, the boy patted his head and looked at the blood it left on the palm of his hand.

Death had passed over him, and his mind was ready to prove it deserved the second chance. While he wiped streaks of sweat from his shaky fingers onto the leather jacket he wore on top of his hooded sweatshirt, the boy returned his gaze to the barbed wire along the tennis courts. The masked man was too close and too fast to plan or try anything but this: the boy would have to cross over the barbed wire.

As he sprinted toward the fence, he flipped his hood back over his head and pulled its strings until the hood was tight. It was time to jump. The toes of his shoes left behind a puff of dust as he left behind everything, outstretching all his muscles like a handgun’s spring at the end of its last coil. His fingers pulled on the fence. While his knees bent and extended together with every kick that he launched against the fence, his spine whipped his shoulders forward and his arms windmilled with the precision of a swimmer performing the fly stroke.

And he almost flew, as light as a butterfly. But there was the barbed wire. So he stopped trying to fly and rolled onto the razors.

He dropped onto the tennis courts with a ripped jacket. Its leather could only serve the purpose once, but well enough; he wasn’t bleeding. Another razor crossing was not an option. He should be safer inside this cage. The boy looked down at his hands and gasped when he saw one finger was crooked. No bone was showing. It must have gotten jammed while gripping the fence. He kneeled down, undid one of his shoelaces with his good hand, and put the crooked finger in his mouth. After jerking the finger back in place with his mouth, he wrapped it against another finger with the shoelace. Standing on the other side of the fence, the boy stuck his tongue out.

The man’s wide pupils gleamed through the eyeholes of the ski mask. How can anything become a game for children? This must have robbed the man of some thrill or even dignity; his adult involvements were less worthy of analysis and more trivial when an immature mindset could turn his motives into a superficial game. Or the glimmer in his eyes wasn’t rage but curiosity, as if he wandered beyond the first question to ask, What game would suffice to persuade a child to abide by things forbidden?

Stepping back a few yards, the man looked up, grabbed a tree branch, and swung his legs up in the air while resting his hips against the branch. With his feet pointing to the sky, the man in the ski mask bent his hips into a pike and brought his legs into his chest, allowing him to finish his upward swing with a perched crouch atop the branch. Its elastic whip was his to command, and from his place of balance, he ascended farther, hurling, launching, and swinging until he was high enough to leap across the gap between the tree and the fence.

The boy watched with disbelief, each second draining the strength in his legs, their life succumbing when he saw gravity succumbing to the life wielded by the lithe body of this adult who seemed to have flown and touched down before him. All logic must have fled from the boy. There was nothing left to imagine.

But a shadow of imagination or defiance reassumed control of his tiny body, and he yanked once at his other shoelace before launching his harmless shoes at the man. A chuckle came from behind the ski mask. The man was so close that it was possible to make out the dried spray paint that stuck to the black mask. In this light, the paint could be any shade.

A blade of grass glistened on the boy’s shoulder. When the boy looked down at it, he slapped the blade of grass away. He backed up when he recognized its true anatomy from the blood on the man’s lips.

Thanks for holding on to the tip of my tongue. The man chuckled as he took out a small plastic bag and wiggled it. Inside the plastic there was the boy’s missing hair. The man bent down to pick up the sliver of his tongue and dropped it in the bag. His eyelids closed when his fingertips felt through plastic the piece of tongue that rubbed against the hair. You have an eye for my artwork? he asked, gesturing to the map-like circus of corporate body parts and disjointed logos that penetrated the wounds and orifices of sacrificial mascots. Like Basquiat, right? You should feel lucky. I never allow anyone to see me with my art. You’re the first one. Sometimes you need an outlet more than a home, until you realize they can both be the same. This school is my home, he said as he spun around to inhale the beauty he saw in the campus.

While the man spoke and did this, the boy looked at the shoes he had discarded and the socks he wore that had rubber soles. The boy fled in his socks toward an exit far away, but this was still an open space with one ending. He would have to change the space if he wanted to change the ending. So he climbed the fence that caged him in until he was well out of reach but below the barbed wire. Along the fence, he made his way to the other end of the court.

Using the rubber-soled socks for traction, the boy led with his toes and kicked out ahead so his feet could grip the chain links of the fence. From there he pulled with his shoulders to launch his torso until he caught up to his feet. He duplicated this feet-first swing to travel half a court length along the vertical fence. Too heavy to mimic the boy, the man had to remain below. It was enough to keep the boy out of reach for the moment, even if it meant sacrificing his body again to use the fence. The boy winced and looked away when he saw that one of his toes was bleeding and a fingernail was about to fall off.

Several times, the man skipped backward like a track athlete. Each time, at varying distances, he exploded into a sprint and jumped up for the boy’s ankles, but for every jump, the boy tucked his legs out of reach. Seeing that the child was headed for the gate that opened to the adjacent basketball courts, the man ran between the boy and his goal.

It appeared to be a stalemate. Growing impatient or alarmed when the boy took out a cell phone, the man shook and kicked the fence, loosening the child’s hold so that the cell phone dropped and he only had one handgrip on the fence.

The boy fell, but with power. His knee collided against the man’s right collarbone. Limping and bleeding but still on his feet with his cell phone back in hand, the boy left the man on his back. He unlatched a gate to enter the adjacent basketball courts before he came to a locked exit. Looking back to see the man running toward him with a stiff right shoulder, the boy grunted as he lifted the heavy lock with its thick chains and pushed the gate to create an opening. He pulled back the hood of his sweatshirt and grimaced as he squeezed his head through the gap. Halfway through, the man grabbed him by the arm. But the boy wriggled free, leaving behind his ripped jacket.

Lying flat along the shallow slope of a metal awning above a locker room, the boy listened to the rain scampering on his metal bed until he heard much heavier footsteps beneath him. He lifted the neck of his T-shirt over his mouth to hide the vapor from his breath. Rubber scraped brick and an arm reached for the boy, pulling him off the metal bed. Cradled in powerful but lean arms, he looked up at the masked man.

Dad, he said, smiling.

Benjamin. His father greeted him. You’re hurt, he said, pointing to blood. Benjamin’s sock had some and so did a torn-off piece of his t-shirt that wrapped his finger.

Just a nail. It’ll grow back. So what’s next?

Hospital? his father said, sticking out his tongue.

Ha-ha, no really.

"You want to stay out and play more? I thought you’d be tired after the subway."

***

Benjamin sat by himself in a crowded subway car. The back of his leather jacket had not yet been ripped. When a mother and child entered at one stop, he hopped up and helped them move to his seat amid the subway car’s swaying acceleration. Backing up to give them room, Benjamin planted his feet next to a tourist. The subway bumped them together.

A flashy watch appeared when the tourist pulled his hands out of his slacks to surrender a whoa, my bad behind sunglasses.

Why do you wear them indoors? Benjamin asked, creating goggles with his fingers.

You’re too young to understand, little man.

Tourist. Benjamin huffed, turning his back.

How did you know?

It’s a joke. Anyone that’s weird or off—you get to call them a tourist.

"Guess I am wearing a brand-new T-shirt with Ninevah City on it."

Next time, try a jersey, like the Vulcans. You won’t be such a target here.

Looks like I was wrong about you, kid, the tourist said. He pointed to his shades. "I wear them for the ass."

Benjamin smiled at the word and covered his mouth. When his hand fell away, confusion slipped over his face. But it makes you so . . . obvious. Just use the windows like me, he said, nodding to a woman’s reflection.

The tourist rocked with laughter and clapped his hands before giving Benjamin a high five.

Can I try them?

Sure, the tourist said. As he handed them over, the train rocked and Benjamin dropped the sunglasses. Those are limited edition! Fucking kid.

Never mind, Benjamin said.

Never mind? the tourist asked in disbelief as he bent over to reach for his sunglasses. You mean you don’t want to bother me anymore ’cause you had your fun? That was a real dick move, even for a kid.

You should wear them in the subway, Benjamin said before he turned his back.

Fuck you, kid. What, your dad never taught you what a hangover is? the tourist asked through squinted eyes as he stood up with his sunglasses.

Hey, he’s just a child. Leave him alone, a male passenger told the tourist.

Benjamin kept his back to the tourist and sidestepped so their backs were facing each other. The tourist had the stature of model, and Benjamin stood at about four feet tall. While the tourist inspected his sunglasses, blowing on them and wiping them off, Benjamin reached behind his head, which was nose level with the tourist’s back pocket . Scratching his head with his thumb and pinky, Benjamin used his three middle fingers to unbutton the bulging back pocket on the tourist’s slacks. With a swoop, Benjamin’s hood flew over his head and the bulge was gone.

The next subway stop came, and the bulge was back. Benjamin stepped out onto the platform while flipping through the credit cards he kept close to his chest. The tourist frowned as the doors closed between them. Looking down in recollection, he pulled out his wallet and shouted, Hey!

Benjamin smiled to himself at the sound of the muffled shouts behind the subway doors, which the tourist slapped and pounded. The commotion stopped. Looking back as shock swept across his face, Benjamin saw the doors being pried open from the inside by a pair of hands. The other riders were shouting at the tourist for missing his stop and holding everyone up by forcing the doors back open.

Pickpocket! Pickpocket! the tourist screamed. With a mad finger, he cracked an invisible whip in Benjamin’s direction. The tourist was so loud and insane that the crowds were clearing for him. Benjamin would have to break behavior and run, marking himself for all to see, including the cop standing by the only exit.

The police officer followed the invisible whip, and in seconds, Benjamin’s innocent halo vanished. In its place was the hood he wore. He wasn’t just a kid to everyone anymore. He was a pickpocket, a loathed species that enjoyed no dedicated understanding or preservation in spite of its impending extinction. The police officer corralled him away from the exit while radioing for backup. Two more officers appeared from the direction Benjamin was heading when he heard someone shout a name: Dustin!

Over his shoulder, Benjamin looked past the cop who was chasing him to see a man in a ski mask and pea coat, his father. The masked man sprinted past the officer weighed down by