payment page
The setting of “Speech Sounds” is revealed directly, in descriptions of post-pandemic Los Angeles, and indirectly, in the narration of how people live and move within the city. The ruin of the city is complete and remarkable for having happened so quickly. Downtown streets are now “canyons” where children run “hooting like chimpanzees,” unaware of what the ruined buildings were once used for. Freeways are no longer passable. Oddly, people have destroyed overpasses, though Rye doesn’t say why. Shops are boarded up, people “farm” in their backyards, debris and glass make driving difficult for those who have cars, and cars themselves have become weapons. Anyone who wants to travel even a few miles must camp or rely on strangers, both risky choices. And all this has happened in just three years, evidence of how disruptive the linguistic and intellectual impairments of the pandemic were to social systems.
How characters navigate the setting is also revealing. They are generally fearful and anxious. The story begins with the rare but welcome opportunity to travel by bus, for those who can barter for fare. Yet the first sentence states bluntly that “trouble” is already happening on the bus, as it so easily happens everywhere. The young men’s aggressive behavior scares the passengers, and Rye braces herself physically and mentally for more uncertainty and violence. She faces the constant threat of rape “wearily,” and she knows that some men have become predatory exploiters of women. In the case of the fleeing woman, Rye can only guess why the man pursues her. Perhaps possessiveness, perhaps jealousy—in any case, violence is endemic to the setting. What seems for an hour or two to be a positive change in Rye’s life ends suddenly, as she sits stunned in the glass-strewn street with three newly-dead bodies.
