The Fine Art of Silence

It is something so easily shattered that even a word could break it. It sits at the end of your pen, or pencil, urging you to defy it, to challenge it. But you mustn't, you’d have to pay for the damage. An expense most people wouldn’t mind paying for, except you. The fee pulls you down by your pockets, change jingling as you shift from place to place aimlessly. Allowing you to be vulnerable to even more pocket weight.

Your family doesn’t understand this art, and they are not afraid to defy it, there will commonly be shouts from children fighting over whose turn it is to use the family laptop; Glass cups will “accidentally,” be broken by your little sister, and the TV will be put on full blast not long after by one of your older sisters, echoing through the whole neighborhood as if thunder struck in an empty valley.

You can’t stand the silence, but you are trapped by it everyday. The constant bother that you might say something stupid, or hurt someone’s feelings, so you don’t say anything. But words ache to leave your mouth, your finger wants to tap, you want to hum and sing-along in every single elementary school birthday celebration, but you won’t, you can’t, they will know something, they will always know something, as soon as you open your once wordless mouth.

The past echoes in your everyday thoughts. The slamming of brakes, the late nights sick hurling over a toilet, the sounds of yelling and the breaking of glass, similar to that of broken, melted ice, as it crashes into the floor...When it all stops, there is no noise, just silence, a deadly silence that only a well known murderer would recognize and go to for comfort. Enjoying a bowl of ice cream as he pets his victim's cat, and watches the Golden Girls, laughing at the fact that Betty White is the only one still alive.

Like your family, not everyone in the world understands this art, they all constantly disagree with it, continuously shouting over politics, constantly using loud machinery, and there is even the constant shouting from a local fruit stand salesman to a nearby tourist, who doesn’t know about the child who slaved away to pick every last mango, but was actually in fact very ill, coughing on nearly every piece of fruit, spreading the virus, that now silently waits for its next victim. The realization of this will be made by the buyer, in a public bathroom, some few hours later. Need I explain more?

Now imagine that you are sitting in an empty field and there is nothing else around, but the ground and grass the surrounds you. There is no one shouting over politics, no loud machinery being used, no ice cream eating, Golden Girls-watching murderers, and no virus infested fruit, there is just nothing. The only sound is the wind gliding through the grass, that sways and rustles together with every powerful gust, now there is a different kind of silence, but how is this silence? Isn't silence usually something with little to no sound? Well that's the thing about silence, it is everywhere but it is usually unnoticed. It can be a quick break in a commercial, it can be the stillness of a class taking a test, or blasting your music to mute out your siblings, and even the slow quiet breath from your most favorite dog in the entire world, silence doesn't really have a true form, it has so many different components and qualities... that is why it is considered an art.