XLV

Silence

Silence is a loud thing.

Silence is a loud thing.

Absence is a very present thing.

Man: When I first asked my sweetheart to marry me, there was a silence so loud it nearly burst my eardrums. It stretched on for an eternity – the silence. “Will you marry me?” – the silence. Fortunately, the silence was broken with a resounding yes. But the silence that day was so loud.

Woman: I've never had a child, but I imagine that the silence that marks the break between their entry into the world and their very first cry – that silent intake of breath – I imagine that silence to be very loud.

Humanity: There are silences that should be broken that are never broken. And these are the loudest silences of all. As a child, being picked on at school, that awful, blinding, blurring silence between the bully’s’ remark and well… nothing. No one to stand up for you. No one to call them out. No one to come to your rescue or your defense. The silence of the onlooker – such a loud silence. And what about the bully’s that don’t live in the school yard? What about the bully’s that live in the dark streets and the dark shadows of the dark corners? Who prey on the innocent, and who force them into silence. A silence so loud that it can take over their lives. Take over their minds. A silence that rules them; a silence that binds them. Walls of silence that come up around them. A cellblock of silence. A fortress of silence.

Me: I experienced silence once, so profoundly. It was the 30^th of June. It was quite a mild day. And I received a phone call, informing me that my loved ones mother had passed away, after many days in hospital. I managed to keep it together on the phone, but as soon as I hung up the floodgates opened and I cried for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes. And when I walked into that hospital room the silence was deafening. The silence of a life just passed. No intake of breath, no rise and fall, no blood pulsing or heart beating – just silence. And with the silence came this awful, awful absence that made itself so known in that room. And afterwards – for months, days, years afterwards. Absence, such a present thing. A dark bird. The absence was stifling and the silence was deafening, and it was all so awful. And I remember it. And I’ll never forget it.

What a strange phenomenon, that things that mark lack can make themselves so evident. Such a strange strange thing, that life brings for us.