The Story of Silence (Book 3)

Chapter 17

Tuesday, March 14th, but then, you should already know the date:

Silence woke the next morning in bed with Sara asleep in his arms. His head hurt and he was only vaguely aware of why they were in bed as he gently lifted the few strands of hair that covered her face and watched her sleeping. Her face was pale and smooth, around her eyes was dark from her makeup and her lipstick was smudged.

He lay back down and rolled over, being careful not to make too many sudden movements in case he woke her. That was when he noticed his alarm clock on his bedside table registering eleven o'clock. He just lay there in mild shock at the time. How'd I sleep in so late? He asked himself. Why didn't my alarm wake me! He panicked.

After the initial shock had passed, Silence swept the covers back as he jumped out of bed and raced wildly across the floor, picking up his clothes from where they had been scattered the night before and hurriedly putting them on.

He was vaguely aware that he had woken up Sara and that she was watching him sleepily as he finally found his last sock and pulled it on. He turned to her and forgot for a moment that he couldn't talk as he went to apologise for his rushing away like this. It didn't come out in much sense.

Finding his notepad at last in a pocket he wrote her a note telling her that he had to go to work, and apologised for that. He handed her the note and ran out of his room and flat, into the hall and reached the elevators. He pressed the button and then kept pressing it in the hopes that it would make the elevator go faster. It finally arrived after what felt to Silence like years, and he jumped inside and pressed G. The elevator arrived in a minute and he bounded out, past the surprised man at the desk that went to hand him his mail and newspaper, and out into the street. The man at the desk just shrugged and tossed Silence's mail back into the slot where it was normally placed. Because of Silence's rush, he missed out on seeing Susan's article in the paper.

Silence started to hail a taxi as he hit the sidewalk, and got one after a few seconds of waving. He hopped inside and relaxed a tiny bit, he was going to be in so much trouble if his boss was waiting for him.

He arrived at eleven forty-five and ran up the stairs to his office. He didn't think his boss knew that he sometimes took the stairs and so he hoped that if his boss was waiting for him, he'd be outside the elevators waiting for the lift to come up with him in it. This meant that he would be able to sneak past.

He reached the doors at the top of the stairs and pushed them open, peeking out as he did so. The coast was clear. He stepped out into the hall and quietly headed towards his office. He was out of breath because of the rush to get here and he felt like his heart would explode.

No-one was outside his office when he arrive, which he took to be a good sign, and he entered.

From outside in the hall you can't see into the offices, it's just a white wall. In some of the offices on other floors though the walls facing where you come from to enter are made of smudged glass, that way you can see into the room but you can't see what anything is, you can just see the shapes. Silence wished he had that for his office.

George Oldwood was waiting for him inside. He was seated in Silence's chair, facing the window wall. He turned when he heard the door open.

'You're late,' he said softly, stating the obvious in case Silence himself didn't know. 'Care to explain?'

Silence pulled out his pad and wrote out his explanation. I slept in after a late night. I'm sorry. It won't happen again.

It was such a bad thing to have to say, and he was afraid that his boss would get the opinion that Silence often went out and stayed out late at night. But Silence found no way to explain that he'd only started going out since Oldwood became his boss.