The Dream Called Story

II Abyss of Silence

Wherein Quiet falls deeper into the abyss before finding her self

Quiet rarely gave the dream she once had any thought, having learned to accept everything as they were. She had also come to understand why a Dreamer was forbidden to look into another's basket, for she had paid the price for this sin. She had paid for it with her dream.

If only she had not stolen a peek, she would have continued on with her dream. Quiet would not have given up, though whether she could have conquered the dream at all was still a question left unanswered.

At this point, she guessed she would have failed just as miserably, for she still did not have the Talent required to fill the Tome with enough words and make it shine.

She could not blame herself either. Perhaps, all was as it should be. Perhaps it was simply that not all Dreamers were destined to realize their dreams, that some were doomed to fail, and that she was dealt with such a card.

And of course it did pain her, that she was only fated to dream and no further. How she wished that she was at least as good as the talented Dreamers. She plainly wasn't. And though the truth did not sting so much anymore, deep inside, she could not deny that it had made her bitter.

Quiet was determined to abandon this bitterness and move on; a repulsive thing such as bitterness had no place in one walking the world. Each time her dream, the curse that it was, would resurface, she would shrug it off, wave the memory away until it dissipated back into the recesses of her mind.

With years of shunning its whispers as though ignoring it ever existed, it was not long before this took its toll on Story. Inevitably its voice grew even weaker. Softer. Until it was the faintest of sounds.

And then it was hushed, and so was the world for Quiet.

In locking her Heart away and banishing her Dream, this was what the world had become for her – a world without sound, a world without harm.

The silence surrounded Quiet, and she welcomed its embrace, because this was who she was – an entity that was not meant to leave a mark in the world. She had entered the world quietly, and soundless she would leave it when her time would come. As if she had been barely there.

Another face among the crowd. A mere number among the thousands. A soul whose sole purpose was to fill the void and the gaps and nothing more.

Truly this did not bother Quiet, as she was neither compelled to make a sound nor leave her mark anywhere. The silence, it was good for a time, until she found herself reaching for her Tome again.

Quiet flipped through its pages – blank pages and half-filled pages. All of them, in the truest sense, empty. Meaningless.

Sighing, she closed the Tome. Right then she just felt so sorry for the dying dream, as for the creatures that still lived within her imagination.

If only there was another way to set them free, or to have another Dreamer take their reins. It was a heavy burden to bear an unfulfilled dream, an unwritten Story. For that Story to be forever trapped in one's daydreams, its subjects begging to be released.

It was said that dreams could be buried, but what Quiet discovered was that however deep and far one buried them, they could never be forgotten. A dream was either a road or a plague. Something that was a part of who she was could not simply be undone, and that was what a dream was. A ruined dream was still a dream, after all.

One could silence a story for certain, yet all it could only do was create a gaping hole in one's soul. Such was the curse of a ruined dream: A distant emptiness in one's being.

Though quite uncertain, Quiet finally unlocked the drawer and retrieved her Heart. It looked so frail. She held it near her bosom, aware of how slow and weak it was beating. All the while she stared at its wound, reminded of how the Heart had broken into two so long ago. It had not healed ever since. The Heart sadly looked back at Quiet, too.

And then she admitted to her Heart, that at her very core, the urge to fill the Tome's pages was still there. She yearned to try again, and only then could she fill the void in her chest.

Then what is stopping you? asked the Heart.

"The unfinished pages," answered Quiet. For every page she could not complete was another failure, a mark of another defeat. Another proof that she was not destined to fulfill this dream. She dreaded adding more to the line, as though one more would spell the end of her.

That one more unfinished page would swallow what little hope she had left, and shatter the Heart altogether.

The Heart understood. Why Quiet feared so much was only because the dream was precious to her. If it wasn't, it would not have mattered so. As it was, the dream frightened Quiet terribly, and it was that fear that choked the will out of her, thus keeping her from chasing after the dream.

It was not only the Heart that was the wounded of the two, it seemed.

How about we try for a different reason? the Heart offered.

Quiet frowned. "What other reason could there be for a dream than to have it fulfilled?"

This time, the Heart said, we don't try in order to fill the Tome's pages and make it shine. This time we try, simply, to feel alive.

Will you not dream once again, and break your silence? 

From the storyteller: If you were to write the journey of your own dream as a fable, what name will you give to your main character and why? ^__^

Will Quiet listen to her Heart and break through the silence? What will it take to finish a page and fulfill a dream? Read on, and Quiet might find the answers.