The Silence

I drove in a familiar silence. I had grown accustomed to it. It was sharp yet comforting all at the same time. The silence was like an old friend that knew you better than you knew yourself. It was nothing like the obnoxious noise that hung over me everyday. I hated the noise. It is always reminding me to keep in touch with reality, to bury my thoughts, and to keep moving forward. Basically, it was a constant reminder to just move on with my life. To forget what’s been done and to leave what’s unchangeable. People keep moving only because the noise tells them to do so.  The noise could never understand the deep concerns I feel and what I’d been through. The silence; however, was a touch of simplicity in my life. It was kind and generous and never rushed me. I could think for a moment and feel a split second of....

I stopped the car. There it was… The looming and vast forest that my past was locked away in. Dr. Issac told me coming back would help solidify my new self. However, I have my doubts. It had been 9 whole years since the incident. 9 years of trying to redefine myself and make something of myself. However, you cannot reinstate what was never there. It’s common knowledge that something broken can be fixed. However, missing pieces will always keep the project unfinished.

I stepped out of my car into the misty air. The mist enveloped my skin with frigid drops of drizzle. It was a new and alarming feeling as opposed to the usual city humidity that I had grown accustomed to. However at the same time, I knew this was the forest’s long awaited welcome back to my home. In front of me lay the earthy path now shrouded with the underbrush of the forest. Although the path was ambiguous and dark, I remembered exactly what it looked like 9 years ago. How could I forget the many times I tracked this path through the woods? The sky lights used to peek through the forest trees and dance across my meandering movements. The spots of warmth always guided me back to where I needed to be. But now a cold memory distorted the old ones. Flashes of repetitive blue and red lit up the path and footprints of outsiders battered the dirt. People I had never seen before were rushing past me. I stood there cloaked in a blanket, but it did not offer me any comfort or warmth. The noise had already gotten to me.

I continued forward, but I felt like I was sinking deeper into quicksand… With each step the forest was consuming me, just like it had done with the once lit path. Dr. Isaac was wrong. This wasn’t going to make me better. Why did I listen to him? I stopped in my tracks. I listened for my thoughts to stop. When they did, I felt my entire body shutter in an instant. No one but I was out here. I was all alone, but not truly alone. Silence had made its way back to me. This time certainty flooded my veins. Dr. Issac may be wrong, but the silence has never steered me in the wrong direction. I knew I had to follow it at any cost. So I kept moving because the silence guided me even further into the dark thicket.

My heart began to beat faster and faster as little traces of my past revealed themselves to me as I walked. An ivy-ridden well stood tall but battered among the brush.  Memories of the nights when I managed to escape to the well stopped my breath. I would escape from the family with a book I found in my father’s cabinet. I didn’t know how to read, but I longed for the ability. The aspiration became my first desire in the outside world. I wasn’t allowed to read because the family forbade the females from learning how. However when I grasped a book in my hands, it calmed me to slide the yellow pages between my small fingers while the silence and the moon kept me company. It was something I looked forward to because it made me feel whole. I didn’t know that it could all end if someone caught me. One day, one of the elders found the book under my mattress. I was terrified because I knew what happened to people who defied their word. Punishment was vague but strict in the community. To a small girl, the word made my stomach stir and my throat go tight. My sister held me and cried while we waited on their verdict. It never occurred to me that the punishment could be death. They let me live, but for an entire month I wasn’t to speak a word to anyone. It was God's will that I kept silent and not poison the other children with my malicious ideas. So I did. I kept silent and didn’t dare make another mistake that could cost me my life. 

I reached the clearing and my heart skipped a beat. The silence deafoned my senses. It told me to stop. Before me, I expected the homes of the families to still be established and intact. However there was… nothing. The last night I was here, the world was on fire. The house that I grew up in...that I suffered in… was up in flames. The screams of people who carved into my very soul, cut through the night silence. It was as if hell had opened up and swallowed them whole. The devil roared with laughter as god’s divine sinners burned alive. I hated that noise… It slashed at my insides and raked itself into my brain, never leaving. 

Silence had abandoned me that night, but it was here now. It surrounded me as I sunk to the ground in blinding relief. As tears welled up in my eyes, I realized that my nightmare was over. I could finally sleep in peace and quiet.

The End