Shhhh....

I sat in the kitchen staring at nothing. I knew the kitchen table was covered with towels and books and a manner of scholarly utensils, but it was when I started to take notice these things again that it came suddenly. It occupied the entirety of my cochlea as if it had always been there, though I could recall, scarcely, that room was capable of the warm silence I longed for. The sound was suddenly never-ending! "A salient change to my world --though the change I could not recall!

The notes were prickly, like a thousand tiny needles they stabbed my brain so that I was bleeding awareness to it --a sacrifice to itself. A blood sacrifice.  I whistled, mimicking, poorly, the song of those sky-keepers. It wavered, a distinctive falter, but did not pause: my ruse scrutinized with an instinctive reflex. I pressed my palms to my head. The sound was replaced by a thick rumbling and satisfied my crippled mind for only moments before the distant sound of chirping presented itself again behind my veil of veins.

Disheartened, I tried at last to come to terms with my fate --in truth, to ignore it. But its blood-magic had marked me, and with this certitude the strike of a flint deep within lit a fire in my belly. Though I did not move, something in me started running. I could hear the thick rumbling again but this time it burnt my skin. My eyes prickled and burnt then too. The flame, as suddenly as it had revealed itself, had frozen in my core. The weak tendrils of flame crystallized, stabbing me from the inside. I was burning and frozen and antagonized by a force no one else could hear.

What would I give to have my peace back? A pinch on the arm? Yes.  A two-inch paper-cut, smothered in hand sanitizer? Yes. My eyes swam with thoughts of appeasing this assailant. Anything, anything. And for the first time, I looked up. I stared at the space in the kitchen as the sound solidified. I begged at it with a sincerity unknown to any mortal before --silent and strenuous, to no avail.

 

And the chirping consumed me again.      

Author's Note

some grammar issues, sorry about that...

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[Findabhair]

This story parallels with the Stages of Grieving through a ridiculous juxtaposition of the death of the persona's silence and the stages of grief that real people go through during a loss. The fact that the persona never reaches all five stages (the final one being Acceptance/Moving On), represents how some have to go through the cycle of grieving several times before accepting what has happened. At the end, when "the chirping consumed [them] again" it is unknown whether or not they finally reached the fifth stage.

The stages are:
Denial/Shock/Confusion
Bargaining/Dwelling
Depression
Anger/Guilt
Acceptance/Moving Forward