Silence

I wasn’t concerned, at first, when the voices stopped.  Well, to be completely honest, I didn’t even notice.  There were too many things to do – too many night of reckless abandon getting drunk at the bar just sitting around a patio table chain smoking and talking about politics, religion, the state of the country today; modern day philosophers on an American Legion porch in the middle of Nowhere, USA.  But one day they were just gone. 

How long had it been?  Weeks?  Months?  Looking back, I couldn’t pinpoint when the silence would have started.  No life altering moments in my recent history.  But, perhaps that was the problem.  I shrugged it off.  They had gone quiet before.  It happens from time to time.  We just run out of things to say to each other.  They come back, though, when they’re ready – when I’m ready.

After a few more months, I began to worry.  They had never been gone this long.  At first I had been relieved.  I enjoyed the silence, my mind not constantly spinning, the voices not shouting over one another to be heard.  But now the silence frightened me. 

I have never been good at being alone.  Maybe that’s why the voices started.  Now they were quiet and I was lost.  I struggled to fill the day with more voices – real voices.  It worked most of the time.  But every night, as I lay staring at the ceiling, their absence was a sharp needle slipping through my ribs and into my heart.  I could feel the silence sitting on my chest, making it hard to breathe.  What if they never came back?