The Silent Sound

A Conversation

Chapter Three

Those who say, "You'll never understand until you go through it yourself," are not lying. They are a hundred percent right and no one can testify and vouch for their honesty-and the accuracy behind their words-more than me. For I have learned, I have felt, and I have experienced everything I had once thought was next to impossible.

Media, women, and heck, even men, portray males as cold-hearted humans and while that moniker has some credibility, it is not always true. Not many teenage boys can say with a sober face, "Parenthood is beautiful and the joy of holding your child for the first time cannot be overshadowed by debauchery," but once middle-age hits them-when they are thirty years and change-the same teenage boys, who once thought women were simply a vessel made for their pleasure, changed their tune.

Now it's possible that I seem to exclude myself from the norm, but I assure anyone who questions me that such is not the case. For no one is guiltier of indulging in sensual pleasures than me and no one is more repentant of those sins than me.

It has taken me longer than most men to find the right path and it has taken even longer for me to suppress my wandering eye, my dog-like instincts, and my unhealthy obsession with a certain toxic drink. I was not thirty or so years when I found the woman I loved-I was actually forty two.

Perhaps, it was my age that got in the way of things or maybe it was my brain-for even my own mother never managed to understand me-but there were relatively few women who gave me a chance for the long run. Now I can blame women, like they so often blame me and my kind, but I'm a gentlemen, so to speak, and therefore will not condemn them to hell.

I'm not a firm believer in retribution, but I believe in justice and morals. Whether or not I actually follow the golden rules of justice and follow the moral path is a different story altogether. Nevertheless, I spent forty years straying from the path and took another two years to recognize the painfully obvious signs in front of my eyes. What can I say? I was a blind man at heart.

Abigail Greyson was the beautiful name of my equally gorgeous soul mate. Before her, I often thought men who spent their precious years chasing after a single women, wagging their tails on a woman's command, were fools, but after her, I became one of them. Fortunately!

I can't stress the joy I felt when I met her and when I fell in love-for love, unlike the tales media and society spins, doesn't happen at first sight-with her. I almost mistook the erratic beating of my heart for a sign of an impending heart attack-that, I'm embarrassed to confess-is how out of touch I was with the art of love.

Now, though the simple act of falling in love with a single woman-my soul mate- was enough to drive me bonkers, when we created a life together my happiness tripled in quantity. Those who say, "Money can't buy happiness," are also absolutely justified because the statement is truer than true. The shining copper pennies, the sparkling quarters, nickels and dime, and the rustling bills were bland in comparison to my son.

Cody Francis Bryson was his name. My son, my heart, my life, my one and only. It may seem a bit conceited to name him after me, but the reasoning is much deeper than one would imagine. By giving him my name, I made him a part of me. Forever and always, his name would never be separated from me.

Even after my death, our names would be conjoined and in that sense, so would we. Together forever, that was our motto, and that is what I imagined our future as, but who knew that fate, destiny, society (who can I place the blame on?) could be so cruel.

I didn't know, when I had picked up my son wrapped in his baby blue blanket, that names didn't last beyond the line of mortality. Death is, was, and always will be a misunderstood phenomenon. For our soul continues to live even after our last breath has been stolen from us, but our names fade into oblivion. At the end of the day, as the light fades from our eyes, we go into our own graves-separated, unrelated even though we were once connected with the chain of life, and detached.

I was oblivious to the cruelty of Fate, I didn't know that the threads that bind us to life were so fragile, and I didn't understand the spontaneity of death, but perhaps that was the way it was supposed to be. Me, naive, and my son, fragile.

I loved him more than I loved myself and that is saying a lot. For which human in this world, besides the Prophets, can say that they love others more than themselves? Not many, I can say with conviction.

When I repeat these words to my wife, who, bless her soul, doesn't see the world the way I do, she smiles patiently but suffers internally. She can't bear to remember those moments I deemed so precious and it doesn't help that those fleeting moments, when my happiness was at its peak, occurred when she was at her weakest stage. She was bleeding, torn in half, when my son made his entrance and she was broken, lost and confused, when I fell in love with her.

But it was not her broken pieces that attracted me to her. Rather, it was her strength. I can proudly boast to relatives, to strangers, to the sky and the moon, that I was not the one who fixed her. She took her own bottle of super-glue, one that she bought with her own money, and patched the cracks. I was but a witness to the majestic sight.

Who said that women are weak? For they are wrong down to the last syllable. In my opinion, ask me now or ten years later, God created men to be the helping hands of women, not their owners. For each son, each male, who is born into this world, owes his breath to a woman.

"Francis...dear, who are you talking to," Abigail says with a disoriented, groggy, voice as she lifts the covers and turns her body to me.

I turn as well, no longer facing the white wall, my back turned to my son's picture, and watch her as she tries to use her hand to pick up her glasses from the table. Once the square shaped lenses adorn her face and clarity lights her chocolate eyes, she gives me a pity filled smile.

I don't answer her and I have no need to either. For she understands, like always.

"Go to sleep, dear...he'll be there in the morning as well," she says, placing her tender, warm, hand on top of mine.

I nod, silent now that my conversation has been disrupted, and lift my legs up onto the bed. I pull the covers around me and lay my head on my silk pillow.

"See? Isn't that better?"

I nod, this time more out of habit than out of agreement.

"Close your eyes, Francis. You have an appointment with Dr. Caulfield tomorrow morning," she says, yawning softly, licking her lips.

I sigh. I am not looking forward to those wretched cards in which I see nothing but a black, inky, blob.

"Goodnight," she says, lifting herself up and kissing my forehead with her warm, soft, lips.

She lays back down and I watch her close her eyes. I know I must not say anything that will scratch her unhealed wounds, but I'm no longer a patient person. I had been but only temporarily.

"Cody says goodnight," I whisper, half afraid of her reaction and half excited to see the effect of my words on her.

With that I turn my face away from her, pretending to drift off to sleep, but being the man that I am, I rejoice and cry out in pain-simultaneously-as I hear her turn away from me to shed sorrow-filled tears.