The Thankless Touch

The First and Only Chapter

I sit in the corner, tainting the air of the Church with my temperamental company. There is only me, the sobbing of the boy's family echoing eerily in the rafters and the monotonous droning on and on of the priest. I hesitantly check my watch- I have many places to be, many purposes to serve but I must stay here, no matter how weary I am. Finally, the funeral goers rise and shuffle to the little cemetery outside to lower the boy's body back into my mother's belly.

I spot him immediately; only he would lean so arrogantly and casually against the child's headstone, fiddling with his silver cufflinks on his grey suit- so very similar to how he interferes with people's lives. My more handsome, more famous and much ruder younger brother, Death.

"I do not know why you did this to yourself, Si." His deep voice is silky as it caresses my childhood nickname in a way that makes me want to shiver with disgust.

"Why I bother coming to extend the courtesies you don't feel so inclined to?" His pretentious voice infuriates me and I'm lost to my temper. "I know why: I'm more ancient and powerful than you, and because I paid attention to when Mother was teaching us manners," I snap back, my dark, exhausted eyes fixed on the kid's mum, choking on her tears in her husband's arms.

He merely chuckles and smirks knowingly, tapping his foot to remove the piece of dirt that was ruining his perfectly polished shoes. "That was because I was out having fun with my dearest twin- you do remember her? You haven't shown up to anything she has attended in aeons." Death throws his own handful of dirt onto the coffin like all the other mourners.

"Love never grew up." I mutter pensively. "She's still as foolish as you two were when we were all still children." 'When we were all still innocent and free' I think, raining my own handful of earth into the macabre grave. Filling up the hole at funerals was always nightmarish- it felt like we were burying the person alive.

"Foolish?" His eyes darken threateningly. "No. I was and always will be fair." He says slowly, weighing each word carefully on his tongue. I scoff, too bad I'm not afraid of Death.

He cocks his head to the side, listening to something I can't hear. "Duty calls, Brother." He smirks, entirely the businessman. "Farewell." He turns and walks purposely into the light and disappears.

I wish I could leave too, I hate funerals and the pain my brother causes but, compared to him, I am cursed. I am enslaved to this grieving family for who knows how long. It could be a few days, or a week or months or years. Death gets to make his claim while I get the rotten end of what he feels is fair.

I hate how my brother is right every time, he is so fair. He reaches everyone in turn, touches everything, his presence knows no bounds. I know why I do this; because I chose to, long ago... we all did.

Love promised to ignite herself in people's hearts but to abandon them without looking back when that flame died.
Death vowed to always be fair and to steal everyone away, one by one, in the night.
I chose to be there when Love and Death weren't. A foolish, impulsive, naive choice. I thought I was a friend to people. I thought I was warm and comforting like a summer breeze or the smell of home. I fashioned myself in a friendly, familiar way- plain jeans, a white shirt and sneakers, but it doesn't work, I'm not wanted. They all think I'm in a suit or dressed in tattered beggar clothes. They all think I'm as detached as Death and as destructive as Love. They curse when I enter a room and spit on my very existence.

I hate that it's not Death's presence or Love's absence that causes the pain. It's me, Silence, who makes the emptiness of loss ache and throb like a gaping hole in your chest. It's me who appears when a police officer knocks on your door to tell you someone you love was in an accident and didn't make it. It's me who has to sit with a couple when they've just told their child that "Mummy and Daddy aren't going to live together anymore."

The flowers are sickly sweet in my nose, cloying and suffocating. The sky is clear but lonely for lack of clouds. All the mourners are leaving now and I sit, leaning back against the cold, hard headstone that reminds me of my brother's smile and sister's gaze. I push my fingertips against the mound of dirt and let go of the breath I didn't realise I was holding. It comes out long and shaky as tears drip down my cheeks. I want to speak but I can't- doing it would shatter me. Instead I just gasp for air, disturbed by the lack of sound in this devoid and destitute resting place of so many. My decisions and memories resurface and get stuck in my throat, and I choke and splutter on them, but no sound comes out... I am silent.
Deep in my mother's embrace, the child lies bound in Death, his family bound in Love for their dead son but everyone is caught in me, in Silence.