The Comfortable Silence

Klemen Vrankar

'Tell me about your childhood.' they say. They will be disappointed, they always are, as there isn't much to tell. My childhood is a jumble of brief snippets of memory, tricks of the light, illusions of the mind. I try to remember more to please them, but all that remains is a patchwork of pain. 

 

My father towers over me his arm raised 'Well what have you got to say for yourself?' Nothing, I can say nothing, words evade me as I am terrified into silence. One day I will tell him exactly what I think, but not yet, I am still too young to vocalise my thoughts effectively.

 

In the bath, I submerge myself beneath the water and feel the peace of the tepid silence that surrounds me, a different feeling to the silence commanded by my father. 'Children should be seen and not heard', one of his many doctrines that enforce my need to scream and shout in protest at the unfairness of the world. 'She could be so pretty if she stopped scowling,' simpers the replacement mother.

 

I open my mouth. 'Don't speak until you're spoken to. How many times do I have to tell you?' I learn to be quiet, eat little and tiptoe in the shadows. The 'call me mummy' person changes my name to The Mouse. She thinks she is very amusing and titters behind her hand.

 

Men land on the moon, and at night, in bed, I imagine myself to be floating free in the dark expanse of endless silent space, an antidote to the harsh voices rising through the ceiling. 

 

My school grades fall as the voices fade, but I welcome the encroaching silence of deafness. 'Hasn't she told you she can't hear?' asks the doctor. This earns me a painful ear syringing, and a clip around my sore ear from my father for good measure, as punishment for my silence. 

 

Home has become a place of hostile silence, of battle lines drawn between my father and stepmother. I am glad to be sent to my room. Now I can swallow some junior aspirin to hasten the quiet oblivion of sleep.

 

Then the calm before the storm breaks. Crockery smashes against the walls, bags are packed, and a door slams as a stunned silence descends. 'Just the two of us now. You'd better buck your ideas up.'

 

During the day, I touch the key around my neck, the terror of losing it numbs my brain. After school, I let myself into the quiet house and revel in my solitude as I perform the household tasks. At night, my father goes to the pub, and the house takes on a sinister air as it holds its breath.

 

'Is that all?' they ask.

 

Isn't that enough? What more do they want?

 

'So how long did you live alone with your father?'

 

One long memory stretches timeless in my head. I don't count the years as each day blends into the next. I stop thinking about anything. I feel the stillness of my solitude and hear the silence of loneliness as he closes the door behind him and turns the key. I exist with the sunlight that ventures through the gap in the threadbare curtains, and the dust motes that dance in its beam. We will have peace for a while until, like me, they too will hide in the dark corner.

 

Then one day, I am staring down at my father's body, the paraphernalia of death surrounds it, and his fearsome tongue remains immobile. I envy him his silent uncomplicated state and wonder whether I should join him.

 

'So how do you think you coped with your father's death?' they ask.

 

I don't know how to answer this in a way that they would understand. The world is too loud, and my thoughts jangle, jar, and jolt around in my head. I consider ways to restore my equilibrium, each more outlandish than the last. In desperation, I seek guidance and find brief solace in meditative silence as my thoughts slow and still. My brain exists outside my body, safe for now. 

 

They mean well, but I know they cannot help me to find comfortable silence. I lock my father's house, hang the key around my neck, and travel to Scotland. Towards the top of a mountain, clouds play hide and seek among the wooded slopes. My ears hurt with the silence of the game. I realise that I should be careful what I wish for, as I don't know if I can break out of the silence, or if it is contained within invisible walls whose edges I may never find. These thoughts tangle within me, and I stumble. As I fall, I scream. Nobody hears my scream, and a sound, if unheard, is just part of the silence.

Jaqui Fairfax