Suffocating silence

Posted by I'm the penguin | Posted in | Posted on Sunday, September 27, 2009

He walks to his house, find the keys in his pocket and unlocks the door. He proceeds to go directly to his room and closes the entrance. He then stands next to the wall waiting for the silence to be broken, then like a saw cutting through silk his mother's voice is listened "Are you home?!" echoing in the almost empty house. "Yes" he answers silently, then hopes he doesn't have to repeat it. Because all his stuff is there, his mother and father live in that house, he sleeps and eats with them, yet under no circumstance would he call it "home".

He sits down and takes a deep breath, like he has seen people doing to blow off steam of the day, yet it doesn't do half as good for him as it does to people on TV. His problem is not what happened in the day, but what he knows was going to unavoidably happen later. So he silently waits sitting by his desk, being able to listen to the tick-tacks coming from the wall clock at his left. He then contemplates the room, but doesn't notice the carpet, or the National Geographic dinosaur posters, or even the window with sight to the park, he is admiring the silence, the beauty at which it just is, while it lasts.

Because he knows that fifteen minutes later, when he hears the entrance door slam, and his mother coming out of her room, he knows it won't even take them five minutes for it to start. For his dad's voice to yell the same slashing and tired words, for his mother to throw all her dead and swollen desires in his face to create some sort of guilt. He learnt the lines a while ago now, they don't say anything different, they haven't been any different in a while.

Yet he listens, even when it hurts, even when he knows he isn't going to find anything new in their fighting, he forces himself to listen the whole thing. Maybe it's his way of making sure they don't kill each other, maybe it's just better to be hurt but to know what's happening. Whatever the reason is, he sometimes tries hard not to care, it never works.

So this time the screaming figures take their positions on time, each contender takes its rightful corner and the match starts. Back in his room he paralyzes, because right there it is no longer mom and dad, it's some man named Dylan complaining about working overtime, and a woman named Linda who got pregnant before she could travel the world, or any other she mentions young people do. They are not his parents because if they were it would be too much, they would be making him terrible damage, but since they are just Dylan and Linda, what harm does it do?

He is frozen at the sound of all, and even when it has never worked before he tires, to avoid being the spectator in the ring. He tries hard to think of the dinosaurs, it doesn't work, he only thinks of female T-rex complaining to male T-rex about how she never accomplished anything. He tries to doodle in his notebook, but it only resembles the sometimes broken glasses on the floor after Dylan throws stuff around.

Then he has nothing left but his school bag, homework won't do, he knows that. But then finds the book he is supposed to be reading since summer now, he hasn't opened it yet. He sees it, in the cover there is this big bird that has no feathers, or is drawn by any lines. This bird is only shaped colors, no limits, no shades. And for a second he can almost see it moving, like the fact of it having no limits could make it come out of the book at any second.

He focuses on the big bird and the pretty colors. Because it is not only about it being almost alive, it's lack of texture and shade is like it has no dimension at all. As is it was only colors, and sound, sound too. He could now listen it, the swirling wind whistling in his ears. Yes! the vibrant wind running rapidly and moving everything around, he hears the swoosh's and the swish's. The only thing he can listen is the wind, and feel it. He now also feels it in his cheeks and face, it feels like a cool breeze when he inhales, the can touch it running between his fingers making them move slightly. He is being lifted and carried by this wind and this bird.

He can now only see the colors, the intense reds and blues, and greens and oranges. The only thing in his mind is the sound of the roaring gale and how it carries him along with the bird and they fly. And there's nothing else there, just the wind and the bird, and him. He flies and grasps the notion that his body is weightless, that he and the colors are the same. He si flying everywhere and nowhere. He is home, finally.

Then he is able to listen something else from the distance, it's calling him. He doesn't want to, but he has to land, the new sound approaches and disturbs the colors. He can't palpate what in this place would be, until the source of the noise find a face:him. "Geooorge!" he doesn't want to go "George come here right now!" he refuses to leave "George, don't listen to your mother, stay in your room" it is too late, the colors are gone.

At his arrival, the contenders are still in combat, they are now including him, like when things get ugly. That was why he oughted to stay, in case they needed him, in case he could stop it. But he knew too that nothing he could do would call it even, so he just listened the rest of it, like always, without a choice but to wait for them to rest and begin another day.





[there is never an excuse when you need one not to feel guilty]

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