The sentences she had typed into her laptop the night before had undergone a physical metamorphosis.
They were no longer mere pixels on a screen, but black ink etched onto cheap HVS paper, freshly printed from a roadside copy shop. The paper felt thin, yet its weight in Andini’s hands was more profound than she could explain.
She had never imagined that holding a single sheet of paper could cause her hands to tremble with such violent intensity.
Before her, the campus bulletin board looked like a hostile arena for a small voice.
The massive the Student Executive Board (BEM) posters, with their expensive graphic design and glossy slogans of inclusivity, seemed to sneer at the HVS paper in her hand.
Her paper contained only plain text and a hope that felt far too simple: THE LISTENING FORUM.
She stood there for nearly five minutes, waiting for the corridor to empty. Am I really doing this? she asked herself.
Fragments of memory flashed through her mind: Nisa’s serenely composed face, the casual laughter of students as they jostled Fani’s wheelchair. For years, silence had been her shield. Within silence, she was untouchable.
But since seeing Fani in the library, that shield had begun to feel like a prison cell.
Andini stood before the board.
Her hands shook uncontrollably as she pressed the tape down with her thumb, securing the paper as if her own fate depended on the adhesive strength of cheap glue.
She walked away immediately, her heart drumming a frantic rhythm, feeling as though she had just committed a high-stakes crime.
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In the corner of the room, a student took a photograph of the paper Andini had just posted. Without her knowing, that image would travel to desks much higher than she ever imagined.
"Are you serious?"
Fani’s voice sounded fragile as they sat in the canteen that afternoon. Andini had just finished detailing her plan.
"I just want us to have a place, Fan. A place that doesn’t require permission from the BEM or anyone else just to feel like we aren't alone," Andini replied.
She searched Fani’s eyes, looking for an anchor.
Fani looked down, her fingers tracing the edge of her wheelchair’s wheels. "Andini, people who are as visible as we are... usually find things harder when they draw too much attention. I’m afraid you’ll be the one who pays the price."
Andini sighed. "I’m more afraid of us continuing to treat all of this as normal, Fan. You don’t have to speak. Just be there. Stand with me."
Fani remained silent for a long time. "I’ll come," she whispered finally. "But don't expect a crowd. This campus would rather pretend to be deaf than go through the trouble of listening."
The night before the appointed day, sleep was an impossibility. Andini went to the faculty building after hours, heading to an old discussion room on the second floor. she had borrowed the key from a janitor she often supplied with coffee.
The room was stagnant and thick with dust.
Andini flickered the lights on; they blinked several times before stabilizing into a dim hum. She began to drag the heavy wooden chairs, arranging them into a circle. She wanted no hierarchy—no front, no back. Everyone had to be equal.
One chair, two chairs... the sound of wood scraping against the concrete floor echoed through the hollow room like a protest.
With every chair she placed, she visualized who might sit there. The student who had cried in the corridor? Other disabled students who had spent their years hiding behind stacks of books? Or perhaps... no one at all?
She stood in the center of that empty circle.
"If no one comes, I will still be here," she spoke to the stillness. "At least I’ve stopped running."
She picked up a marker and, on the faded whiteboard, she wrote a single sentence she had quoted from Fani’s notes: I write not to be heard, but to remember that I once felt.
Andini cut the lights, leaving the room to the darkness. She had done her part.
Tomorrow, she would let the echoes of the silence itself do the work.
