The Boy who Loved Silence
He turns the engine off. It is pitch black and there is a deafening silence. He likes that, it soothes him down. He loves the void that engulfs him in that basement, he loved how that empty basement made him feel — full. As he took a deep breath, he was listening to a machine inside him throbbing; this opened a gateway to a life that he saved from all. He carried it everywhere, safe and hidden within him and showed to none. As he fell deeper into a state of trance in that world of his, angelic characters from another world carried him to a state of deep slumber. He slept like a baby that night within nothing around him, but the void and that throbbing and that deafening silence.
There was a knock on his window, a friendly estranged neighbour passing by was checking up on him. “Are you alright there? This is a strange place to fall asleep” He questioned him with a look of inquisitiveness on his face.
Sweat trickling down on his face, he woke up, red eyes and puzzled face. He gathered his sense and hurriedly muttered.
“I was waiting for a friend and must have fallen asleep in there”, he replied hoping his next door neighbour got no trace of the world that he was hiding.
“Do you need some help getting back to your apartment?”
“No, I will be fine. Thank you for your concern!”
“Good Night, then”
Watching him walk away made him feel a lot better. He was puzzled but a lot more relieved. He was relived to know that one of the darkest secrets of his life was saved from having a human contact. He protected it like a baby, he would never let anyone near it.
He was a man of few words and he always thought silence was his strength and not his weakness. That also made him a very good observer, he would easily see things that one would fail to notice, how the lips would curve when someone would smile or the blinking of the eyes, he would know when someone was afraid just from their eyes. He pretended as if he did not know a lot, but these details made someone more vulnerable than any exchange of conversation would.
He started the engine and drove off to a place he always wandered to for his human dietary needs.
“I would like to have a french toast with maple syrup on the side and a shot of double espresso with a dash of milk and no sugar. Thank you!”
He knew it was too early for french toast and too late for the double espresso, but thought to himself, what was stopping him anyway. He sat on a bench in the farthest corner where he knew nothing would grab his attention except for the things he voluntarily wanted to give it to.
He grabbed his wallet from a back pocket and took out a piece of something. It was old, you could tell by the texture of that paper and the folded corners, he kept staring at it blankly.
It was a picture of a woman. You could tell from the picture itself that she had a slender bodice and the dress hugging her just right to highlight the tender curves. She was beautiful, in an obvious way, but her face was calm like death had just found her and she was radiating life. He looked at that picture and thought of a time when on that very same bench they would sit for hours and talk. Their conversations were not always vocal, but you could tell from their eyes that they were talking. In a blink of an eye they had grown extremely close. Someone would find that level of familiarity in such a short span of time very shocking. Their silences had formed a bond so strong no words could define it.
The waitress brought his order and he was jolted back to reality from his reverie.
Now silence was all he had to remember her. Every night, he would go to the world where she existed, in that silence and they loved. His throbbing would hint him of her presence, the void would take him to her.
He was the boy who loved silence.
Day 2 of 30.
