Enjoy the Silence

A Story by Summer Grace

Flash Fiction

She had died very young, and had long been resting in the silence of the cemetery. Her life had been anything but silent though, up to the last fatal accident that had taken her life when she was only 20. She had lived her life in a way that said to the world she was a brief candle flickering in the great night of life. Irene now rested beneath an angel tombstone though in her life an angel was not exactly the comparison that would come to the minds of the people that had known her. But she became an angel in death, it seemed, as she had died so young, even though she was the driver in the drunk driving crash that had ended her life as well as two of her friend’s lives, so the image was maybe not accurate.

At least this was what of her former best friends thought, who luckily that summer night had not gotten in the car, but had decided to stay at the house where they had been having a party. Dylan had lost his girlfriend at the time, who he had thought of as the love of his life, in the crash, and it was hard not to blame Irene, because she was the one who had driven drunk. He missed Jennifer and had told her not go with Irene that night. Irene had the reputation of being the wildest of them. But Jennifer had been rather drunk too and had failed to heed his warnings, and what had happened had happened.

He had moved on with his life ten years later and when he did think back to the crash, he thought of Jennifer, not Irene. Jennifer was the one had been just an innocent victim, as well as his girlfriend, and he told himself Irene did not need his tears or his thoughts, though they had actually briefly dated at one time, but he found her too wild even for him, so they had broken up. To Irene, he merely wished silence, which was after all, a kind of peace, the peace of her friends forgetting the mistakes she had made in her brief life. He thought, ”Enjoy the silence”. The silence of the cemetery, and the silence of being forgotten. He knew he was bitter, but he told himself one day, he’d forgive Irene.