Circuit Sam

I had the Chatter for almost a year. It sounds like a disease; I guess it was. It was a computer. It clamped onto my armrest like a feeding tray. I pressed letters on a screen and the Chatter said them out loud in a loud voice. The voice was called Circuit Sam, a deep male voice with zero expression. Which is just how I imagined my voice sounding.

My parents loved the Chatter because it made their lives easier. It made my life a bit easier, but . . .

In a bookstore, if I pressed the bathroom icon, there were icons that saved time, Circuit Sam would shout “Bathroom,” and everyone would turn their heads then turn them back and pick up the book they’d just put down. Sometimes the button would stick, and Sam would just keep saying something over and over until I felt like dying.

I stopped using the Chatter. I got sick. I felt like a sick machine. My parents wanted me to keep using it, but I’d only mash the keyboard or type profanity. So they took it away. They never really got rid of it, just packed it away, like a wedding dress, hopeful.

I write notes now. It’s slower, but I like it better. When you read a note in your mind, you read it — you think of it as being in a human voice, the voice of whoever wrote it. I hope that when my parents read my notes they hear the voice of a sad, bright kid who’s at least trying.

They might just hear Circuit Sam.