Silence

by Lauren Moloney, St Clare’s College

There are three kinds of silence. Number one, the awkward, fidgety silence that comes with a half-finished conversation left to linger in the atmosphere, when both parties involved feel the need to say something, but neither knows exactly what to say in order to fill the void. Two, the silence that comes with knowing someone inside out, such that you don’t even have to say anything to know what they’re thinking; a warm, comfortable silence leftover from years of talking and listening. And three, the all-encompassing, all-consuming silence that only surfaces when nothing else can. The kind that settles in your chest, rising and falling with each breath, growing little by little, until suddenly it’s choking you. This is a story about silence. I’ll let you decide which kind.

Seventeen years old. 5:07 PM, in the middle of summer. I was sitting in front of my vanity mirror, braiding my hair and squinting at my pock-marked, freckled face around the spidery crack that had slid its way down the glass nearly twelve years ago. A floaty summer dress fell across my shoulders, a bit too big, but the best I had. Having stomped down the veranda steps, I slid into the beaten up, rusty car. Driving at a snail’s pace because it was raining, and I was perhaps an overly cautious teenager. Pulling up to the pizza place on the corner of Pine and Emerson. I sat across from a boy, one year younger than me, picking at a scab on my knee and tapping the chair leg, waiting for something to happen. Of course, nothing did. Both of us were looking around, staring anywhere but at each other, and outside the sun set slowly. Our orders came, we made awkward conversation, and there were questions that both of us wanted to ask, but didn’t. I drove home, soaking in the afterglow and the smell of rain.

Age thirty-three. Curled into the side of that same boy from sixteen years ago, him reading, me sketching, and neither of us speaking. The darkness outside was kept at bay with candles and low lighting, the regular sterile light fixtures replaced by slowly melting golden flames. Everything felt toasty warm, the soft kind of heat that fills empty spaces with a buzz, even though there was no actual noise. The smell of home filled my nose, more apparent than it had ever been before, and more apparent than it would ever be again. I had the urge to grin, but only after, when this scene became a past yet vivid memory in my brain.

Seventy-eight. A fluttery pulse under my fingers, wavering. The soft beep of hospital machinery moved in time with my breathing, cool and uniform. The hot sting of tears on my cheeks, knowing even before the rhythmic thump of his heartbeat petered out, that this person with this pulse that I had inexplicably grown to know, would not be here for much longer. Quiet. The routine hospital noises replaced with a ringing so loud, yet so distant. A swelling of dark in my chest, threatening to spill out of me from everywhere at once. I felt so far away, the tears from only moments ago a distant memory, cold and sticky on my skin. I had experienced this feeling in fleeting moments, in places of pause where it seemed difficult to press play again. But then, the dam had burst, and I was left with it pooling in every crack and crevice, slowing my thoughts and numbing my nerves.

There is never silence anymore. Everything is always noise; the TV on full volume along with the stereo and the sound of other people’s chatter, because when there’s nothing there, my ears turn themselves inside out, and the darkness in my chest wells up. My hair is now grey, my cheeks sagging with the weight of wrinkles and creases that stretch across my face. Concerned expressions float in and out of my field of vision constantly, and I resist the urge to bat them away; instead letting them please themselves, retreating into my head as soon as they’re gone. The memories are faded, and I feel around again and again for something solid to hold onto, but all that’s left is a few sepia-filtered snapshots of someone else’s life. I fear the silence now.