Now if you think about it, down to the basic principle of it, silence is the absence of sound.
That is true, by all means, but there is another type of silence that feels more desolate than the absence of all sound whatsoever. This type of silence is a silence so silent that you can hear every little thing. You can hear the wind chimes, so much louder than they should be, the sound of a car in passing and the birds chirping and the ceiling fan, all so loud it burns. You can hear your own breathing and your heartbeat and it's so silent that it's deafening.
And maybe that isn't necessarily something that should be called silence, since it's all about hearing things that shouldn't be so loud (or even heard at all, when everything is so far away from where you are).
But, however, it is still a silence to you. A silence more alive than the still kind of silence.
Because silence when you're alone, waiting, becomes something else entirely. Silence, before all that, is the simple matter of just soundless. You may think that it's silent inside a classroom, save from the scratching of pencils, until you reach the point in your life of Solitude (where you are now).
It's ironic, maybe, to say something such as, "Silence is deafening," or maybe it's not, say the ringing of ears or the alive silence that you feel all the time in barren houses.
And right now you, in your soft bed in a house whose walls seem to eat you alive, the cold air of winter fill your bones and the silence is so loud there is no possible way you should be able to sleep or think or do anything.
You like to gaze out the window, the one located on the wall your bed is pressed up against, so you all you have to do is roll over and pull open the blinds. The snow covered yard and evergreen trees stare back at you, give you time to think, and maybe even become astounded by the spotting of a forest animal, or the idea that there could even be moose. You would like to stare out this window now, and forget about the silence that daunts your ears.
But it just doesn't work that way, unfortunately, because your mind can't seem to grasp that these are the only sounds you've heard for what feels like a lifetime, for what probably is since you can't remember a time when you didn't hear these too-loud things in this too-loud silence. So your mind keeps thinking in these sounds, of these sounds, becoming just these sounds, these silences that it's so incredibly suffocating.
You suppose that, maybe, if you got up and piled on some warm coats and went outside, even just to stand around for a while and dream about going on a walk, that the silence would change into something much more comfortable. You also suppose that you should get up and eat something, too, since your stomach is aching and hungry and restless just like the rest of you.
You don't do either of those things, though, just watch the white of ceiling as it gapes down on you, feeling like an open mouth with the sharpest teeth ready to envelop you.
It does, you think, as you fall into the pits of slumber. (Grabbing you, tearing at your skin, Coma fear, you think, come take me).
