?Interrobang! · Track 39 · middle
Proof of What No One Believes
OBJECT (intimate, what Sisukiro found): a folder of 'evidence' from a self-advocacy fight. OWNER (re-linked by Sisukiro): Scentless Sam — tissue sniffer from a paper mill; note the irony of the name. FOUND AT: a swamp-forest lost in the Congo Basin. THE (UN)LIKELY STORY & THE UNANSWERABLE QUESTION: Sam sniffs paper for off-odors though he can't smell; left his folder of self-advocacy 'evidence' in the trackless swamp. How do you prove what no one believes you feel?
Lyrics
[Intro] Here. In the Congo Basin. The air is a weight, a dampness on the skin. Standing black water that doesn't move. And this folder, swollen with the heat, its edges soft. [Verse 1] Scentless Sam. That's what they called you at the mill. Your whole job was breathing in the blankness of paper. Catching the ghost of bleach, the sour note in the pulp. And here's the proof you gathered. A letter from a doctor, dated 2017. Neurology reports, dense with words no one would read. Strips of blotter paper they soaked in vanillin, a hundred times too strong. And your notes in the margin: “Nothing. Nothing again.” [Chorus] How do you show them a color they can't see? How do you prove a world they will never enter? You write it all down. You get it signed. You make a file of evidence for a phantom limb, for a sense that’s gone. Proof of what no one believes you feel. [Verse 2] I read the formal letters from Human Resources. “We find no verifiable grounds…” The minutes from a meeting where a supervisor suggested you just weren't concentrating hard enough. I can almost hear the jokes in the breakroom. The way your own family would light a candle at dinner and ask, “Really? You can’t smell this at all?” An island of one. [Chorus] How do you show them a color they can't see? How do you prove a world they will never enter? You write it all down. You get it signed. You make a file of evidence for a phantom limb, for a sense that’s gone. Proof of what no one believes you feel. [Bridge] So you brought it here. To the peat swamp, the heart of rot and bloom. Where everything is breaking down, becoming something else. A place that should reek of life and death, a symphony of scent. You left your silent testimony in a world of silent shouting. An offering to the humidity. A surrender. [Outro] The pages are soft now, blurring into the mulch. The ink runs. The proof is dissolving. But the question hangs in the air, thick as the heat. How do you prove it? How do you prove it when you’re the only one there?