‘Now I don’t mind having a chat, but you have to keep giving it that!’
Chas and Dave, Rabbit (1980)
The Problem
Caitlin’s broad arse was swaying in front of the stove. Geordie watched it in a state of detached mesmerism. The steady expansion of girth merely reminded him how much he loved her, like having a favourite cake and finding that it had doubled in size.
He was in the middle of telling her about that night’s match; about how the new Austrian manager called everything 'sexy.' He told her about their placement in the tables and what the formation should be to guarantee success. Without pause, he gave out on the latest political scandal before tackling a conversation he’d had in the pub with a stunt man who worked on Titanic, and who had divulged that during the audition process the actresses vying for the part of Rose DeWitt Bukater had to undergo a wet room scenario, and that’s how Kate Winslet got the gig - because she looked hot when she was wet.
And all of this while, Caitlin was stirring the pot until she stopped stirring and threw the wooden spoon in the direction of his head.
A moment of silence ensued, like an unexpected ceasefire. And as he drew breath to say something, Caitlin came at him with the hot casserole and told him to shut the hell up. She was holding it over his head when she said this.
And then she sighed, put the casserole back on the hob, and turned the gas off.
‘Geordie,’ she began, in a voice that attempted to be honeyed but still betrayed a woman who knew exactly where the end of her tether lay. Geordie watched her with a mixture of fear and fascination.
‘Geordie,’ she repeated, as his big brown eyes fixed on her blues, like a doomed miscreant might look upon his executioner. ‘You Never. Stop. Bloody. Talking—’
He opened his mouth. She silenced it with a finger, God pointing at Adam. Charging him up.
‘Isn’t it the big old joke?’ she continued, leaning back in the kitchen chair. ‘Women! Women never stop talking. But I’ve got to say, Geordie, that isn't my experience at all. You know, when I first met you I thought your endless chunter was endearing, but now I just want to smash your face in.’
‘Examples?’ he asked, showing a notable lack of self-awareness.
‘Oh, let me count the ways!’
She splayed out both hands, the reddened palms facing him, getting ready to tick off the ways.
The Ways
‘You always come home from a walk with dog shit on your shoes.’
‘Oookay.’
(First digit): ‘You come home with dog shit on your shoes because you’re not paying attention. Most people scan the path ahead and note that there are no steaming piles of excrement in their way. This allows themselves time to turn their faces to the sky, or to the trees, or to the neighbours making out in the kitchen. But you? You're too deep in your headphones to pay attention to anything. You need constant noise, and the distraction of it leaves you uniquely vulnerable to shitty shoes.’
(Second digit): ‘I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say, What’s that got to do with talking? but you’d be missing the point. How many times have you nearly been run over? So if it isn’t you talking, then you must have someone or something blaring in your ears instead. You don’t know what silence is. You don’t know what it means.’
(Third digit): I hate football. I like rugby and I like cricket, and yet, having spent an hour or more in the pub with your mates, dissecting every toe hair, you still come home and talk to me some more about it …’
‘You hate football?’
‘I fucking hate it, Geordie. Let’s keep this real.’
(Fourth digit): University Challenge. Every Monday night for most of my sentient life, I have settled down at 7pm to pit my wits against the weirdo students. I keep a note of my score. And yet, with unerring instinct, every night at 7pm you walk in and start talking. You talk about what happened at work that day, you show me videos on your phone - ranging from cats in tight spaces to Watch Someone Die. You tell me that the mole on your left thigh might be cancerous, that you think your mother is a secret lesbian, and on and on and ON it bloody goes.’
(Fifth digit): ‘We want children.’
Here, the ground felt firmer beneath Geordie’s feet.
‘We would need to have sex first.’
‘Well, here’s the thing. I find it difficult to have sex when you’re wearing headphones. We went a whole summer with Radiohead followed by the Talking Heads. And recently, for reasons beyond all my understanding, you tried you tickle my clitoris with Tiny Tim tiptoeing through the tulips.’
‘But that falsetto is intriguing, don’t you think? I can do a brilliant impression of him, actually—’
(Sixth digit): ‘We. Want. Children, Geordie. We have talked about two, but I might be willing to stretch to three, pardon the pun. But kids talk. A lot. At least until they’re fourteen. And fourteen years with all that talking will kill me. Or, more to the point, I will either sew your lips together under mild anaesthetic, or I might even kill you.'
(Four digits in one): ‘You are such a good looking man, Geordie. Honestly? I sometimes look at you when you’re asleep and I realise what a lucky girl I am. And then you wake up.’
‘So what are you asking?’ Geordie said.
She stretched out her arms like a supplicant and said, ‘I don’t want to be married to Joe Pesci anymore. I want to married to Clint Eastwood.’
*****
The Solution
Caitlin grabbed the car keys. ‘C’mon,’ she said. ‘You’re going to a meeting.’
‘People talk at meetings,’ said Geordie.
‘Not in this one they don’t.’
Five miles later, through the sun-baked city streets, Caitlin parked up beside a bland red-brick building sandwiched between a multi-story NCP and a martial arts club. The banner read, FRIENDS MEETING HOUSE.
‘What the hell is this?’ asked Geordie.
‘Quakers,’ she said.
‘The porridge people?’
‘Misappropriation,’ she fired back. ‘No Quaker ever rolled oats.’
‘So why am I here?’
‘To teach you silence.’
‘For how long?’
‘Tonight, for an hour. A whole hour, Geordie. You’re going to sit there for sixty minutes and say sweet bugger all. Get it?’
‘And the purpose is?’
She leaned sideways and opened his door. ‘Just get out, Geordie.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To a pub. Any pub. You can drive us home.’
Geordie had gone white. His hands were palsied as he opened the door. The piteous look he gave her before walking towards the forecourt made her doubt herself. And yet somehow, Caitlin knew in her bones that this centuries-old ritual of silence would be the only way to cure her rabbit.
The space was not what Geordie expected. It was devoid of all religious iconography. The chairs were fold-downs, placed in irritating disorder. There was no pulpit and no obvious hierarchy, and the people, as they filed in, were a wide mix of the old and the young, the black and the white, the well-dressed and the slobs.
The depth of his anxiety increased. Even their footsteps were quiet, their breath barely felt. Finding a seat in a theatre with no tickets, he took an available place between two elderly women, one who smelled sweet and fresh and the other who smelled of damp newspaper and rodent droppings. The high windows were open, but the stifling heat was not assuaged. The anxiety found its familiar home in his solar plexus, that mid-point where both his guts and his oesophagus were compromised. It was never bidden but came of its own freewill, and its causes could only be drowned by noise. Noise was the silver bullet to the werewolf, the dawn to the vampire and the contempt for the ghost.
The battle in his torso led to overwhelming nausea. He imagined himself spilling his guts on the floor before hastily apologising and fleeing the scene.
It took no more than a minute of chair scraping and hushed welcomes before the hall was plunged into ominous silence.
He counted the minutes in his head, Mississippi one, Mississippi two …
And then someone farted. One of those side-cheek squeaks where the culprit prays that it will neither be heard nor smelled. Geordie fought a smile, and in that battle between propriety and foolishness, the anxiety diminished. He chewed his inner cheeks, welcoming the sound of his teeth.
It was hard to tell how much time had passed before someone snored. And then a cough, but there was never a flicker of acknowledgement between these worshipers of silence. A belch here, a sneeze there and the effort of mindful breathing. After half an hour or so, Geordie felt he could tell who had the most nasal hairs by the whistle.
He tried to play music in his head, but much like the Mississippi, he quickly tired of its flow.
A buildup of saliva caused him to swallow. He felt the gulp resonate around the meeting room. The man in front of him began rocking as if in the grip of an epiphany. Or perhaps he was silently laughing.
There was noise in the distance, but it lacked resonance. In time, Geordie stopped hearing the urban sound. He thought of his mother, in agony before she died, and the measured dosage of morphine, increasing in time, until she died smiling. He had never considered that before.
And then he thought of nothing at all.
And maybe he fell asleep. Maybe he did, because when he opened his eyes he felt the ticking of an ancient metronome that told him there were not many minutes of silence left. Others began fidgeting, just little tells. A small dip in the handbag, a silent passing of tissues, a general restlessness of limb.
And through one of the open windows came a bluebottle.
The Lord of the Flies cut an end to the Godly silence. And in the ensuing melee, Geordie considered a universal truth.
There was no state of grace that could endure a winged bastard such as this.
*****
Geordie walked to the pub where his wife was. He felt for his headphones, but they were not there. His fingers flicked around his head, his ears and his throat. He felt a momentary loss but it was fleeting. He heard his footsteps on the pavement. He heard people talking as they went past. He saw a sticky blob of gum and sidestepped it. He heard a gull and thought of the coast twenty miles distant, and how long it had been since he had been there. He thought of the rolling sea and could barely remember the sound of it.
After this tentative ritual of silence, he felt different, like he didn’t want to be a sucker to the twenty-first century any more.
Like he didn’t want to be a sucker at all.
*****
Caitlin sat resplendent in a scarlet dress he had not noticed when she drove him to the meeting house. She hadn’t noticed him, absorbed in her newspaper. He walked to the jukebox, one of the retro Rolodex types where you flip through the cards. He found Tiny Tim and put his coin in the slot. He tiptoed towards her and when she felt his shadow he put his fingers to his lips.
‘Did it work?’ she asked.
‘There was this fly,’ he said.
‘And?’
‘There was just this fly ..’
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Silence is GOLDEN !
A lesson in how actually taking the time and “forcing” oneself to listen to one’s inner thoughts is one of the best ways to enlightenment 😇
- A great read, Rebecca. I liked the way you kept the style humorous & lighthearted.
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They say it is the little things that annoy. Talking is such a very ordinary thing, but talking ad nauseam had driven Caitlyn nuts. I loved this. Why did she wait so long? Another brilliant aspect of this story is that it showcases open and honest communication and is solution-oriented. The absence of arguing does not mean a couple loves each other. Despite a fair amount of accusing, she didn't call him nasty names or be mean, she stuck to relevant examples on the topic at hand and started many sentences with 'I' which stated how the talking affected her. I love the way he seemed to have learned his lesson by the end.
Just a few points about using ***** They are brilliant for when you change POV. But for a change of scene, a double-line space is sufficient. The change of scene and change of POV at 'The space was not what Geordie expected.' actually could do with one. The rest of the story from that point is in his POV. All the other *****s are not needed and are distracting. The Titles you have put in are a great idea. They structure excellently.
The only other wee problem is in the last paragraph. It starts in Geordie's POV, which is fine as she has her back to him and doesn't see him, maybe? Or just hidden behind the paper? ('he hadn't noticed her scarlet dress' shows you are in his head) So the sentence 'She hadn't noticed him . . .' should read 'She had her back towards him, . . .' (?) or 'She had her face obscured by the paper,' (?) Something that doesn't change whose head you are in.
'and when she felt his shadow,' has the same problem. 'and when he thought she felt his presence,' perhaps? POV is difficult to nail. Imagine whose eyes you are looking through, and you only know what you can see. And you can only know your own feelings, not the other person's, unless you are clairvoyant. But I still thoroughly enjoyed your story.
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My, my Kaitlin! That was almost longer than my story!
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, but I have been shortlisted five times with my *****
With regard to POV, I don't generally hold too much water by that. I think, occasionally, people get a wee bit bogged down in the grammatical intricacies, because grammar, much like economics or politics, is an area where people are rarely in accord.
The basics, of course. But I write how I write - and that is generally from the POV of an omniscient narrator.
I'm just an amateur writer trying to win $250!! So I'll carry on doing me, and you carry on doing you.
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Don't get me wrong. I loved the story. In the end that's all that matters. If it's loved. And you can do anything in omniscient.
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He was gorgeous - till he opened his mouth.
Sex with headphones on??? lol. Almost impossible not to fidget at such a meeting. I’ve tried it.
Very funny, but plenty to think about. There is so much nonsensical jabbering everywhere you turn in today’s noisy world. The occasional sound of silence is good.
What if someone took away our mobile phones?
Now there you have a problem!
Very enjoyable.
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Thanks, Helen! I do like a bit of comedy every now and then. I have been flirting with the idea of going to a Quakers meeting myself, but I have been told that some of them are quite political. I do wish the twain would never meet.
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I agree with you on that.
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Quietly laughing.
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Don't make too much noise, Mary!
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Somehow, I wanted so badly for Geordie to come back....even nosier, maybe convincing one of the Quakers to finally express themselves. Hahahaha! Lovely work!
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Maybe he did. I just didn't let him finish the story about the fly ... !!
Thanks, Alexis.
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First off, excellent song choice. The organized structure helps with the division of time, and I love how much natter is crammed into such a small space relative to the expansive silence. The intervention-style 'your addiction has hurt me in the following ways' shows just how much this has burdened their marriage. The unintended audio reminded me of John Cage's 4'33, and I'm glad no one was compelled to interrupt
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Thanks, Keba. I had to look up John Cage's 4'33. How intriguing!
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