Jeffrey Ford posed an interesting question yesterday:
The one thing for certain about Black Bolt is that he was a kind of silent martyr figure. This was all heightened beyond recognition by the fact that if Black Bolt uttered one word, the entire universe would be destroyed. Shit, the bad guys always would get him and they’d torture him but he wouldn’t speak one word. It was some kind of weird bondage thing. Anyway, here’s the deal. Imagine this. You’re Black Bolt. You’re fed up with not speaking. You finally think to yourself, “Fuck it, I’m going for it.” But then you have to wittle down the one and only time you’ll ever speak to one, single word. Because as soon as you say it, you and everything else will be DESTROYED (can I get a cackle from Von Doom?) The question comes down to this — if you were Black Bolt, and you had one word to say, the only word you would ever get a chance to utter, what would it be?
My personal suggestion was “It’s —“
Although there does seem to be disagreement over how much talking Black Bolt can actually do. I don’t know much about the character, but it looks like his voice, while a powerful weapon, isn’t exactly of the universe-destroying kind.
Still, I think Ford’s version is more interesting: a character denied a basic human contact, always yearning for it but resisting the temptation because the consequences are too great.
I’m reminded, actually, of a scene I’ve always liked in The World According to Garp:
Mom, it’s very simple. He can do wonders when he’s wearing his magic gloves. If his wife is sad, he touches her with his gloves, she’s happy. If his children are crying, he touches them, and they smile. But he can’t feel them! He yearns to feel. He can even hold off death with his magic gloves, but he can’t feel life. So, he takes off the gloves, and he dies. But, he finally feels life as he’s flying into the arms of death.
I think that’s more or less accurate. I haven’t seen the movie in years, and I could only find one source for the dialog online, but even if it’s not exact, it’s close to what I remember: a fleeting moment of contact, of life, paid for gladly with one’s death. I don’t think the scene appears anywhere in John Irving’s original novel, but I could be wrong.
So, if you were Jeffrey Ford’s Black Bolt, would you trade the universe’s destruction — or even just your own — for the chance to finally speak? And, if so, what would you say?