Noxious Silence

This silence won’t go away. I’m not sure when it started and I get a nauseous feeling in the back of my throat just thinking if it will even end.  It’s so loud, so deafening. A silence that drowns out all other noise, sound, or whisper.

 

Few sounds remain in which to seek refuge. The hypnotizing sound of bubbles bursting in my kettle, the water falling and seeking their space between the packed herbs and the subtle clap the pages make when you realize they’ve given you everything they can. How easily we forget them and move on to the next one.

 

Even when I sit in the balcony to write surrounded by the trees, my plants…I no longer hear my loyal companion nature. The sounds that made up the tune of my office seem so distant. I cannot recall the sound of the birds in the summer or the rustle of the leaves in autumn. The sound of the punctual train crawling across the steel roads is unknown to me. It was crazy that I could no longer distinguish the sound of contemporary rubber tires bouncing across the timeworn cobblestone road.

 

Maybe I am crazy.

 

 

This noisy silence wasn’t letting me enjoy the music of my balcony I so longed for. I could not properly enjoy casual conversation. Listening to my own thoughts and myself were the first things to go. My life had become as if there was a cement truck in my living room; It barely fit in the already cramped space and all I could do was live around the few nooks and crannies that were left near the corners. Living frustrated by my inability to do anything about a very clear problem.

 

I came to this city for its sounds. The sirens, the horns, the chatter and the hustle. The auditory colors. I even miss the rasping metal sound when the neighbor’s dog became bored and spent hours dragging his food bowl across the worn wood. Maybe I was the dog. Maybe the bowl was my life that I clumsily dragged from one end to another. Unsure and unaware of what I was really doing. Not falling back but certainly not moving forward. The dog has an irreversible problem of intellect that will not allow him to move past his issue. From the looks of things, I maybe stuck as well.

 

I do not know what would become of me if I do not rid myself of this silence. All my albums sound the same. All the conversations are empty. The phone rings and echoes but it doesn’t matter. I know it’s not her on the other line. I know it’s not her calling to end this noxious silence.

 

 

Author's Note

A story about the painful silence and loneliness that a broken heart leaves us.

Reviews

[EJ Coleman]

Daaamn, this is good! Every sentence is so perfectly phrased, the language so beautiful. There's no way you can stop reading before you know what's really going on and what's happened, and only the last two sentences are enough for everything to make perfect sense.

[James Towers]

Thanks EJ, I look forward to reading more of your writing!