In the vacuum of space, there is no medium for sound to hold onto. Ever since I was a child, I tried to envision such a place existing, but was unsatisfied with the results my imagination offered. For hours at night, I held my breath, listening. Although many would say they heard nothing at all, I always heard something from within. My ears produced its own ambiance, a constant hum with its own vibrations radiating around my head until it met at the base of my skull. Maybe it was my brain trying to fill the void of stillness in the air, or perhaps I'm part of the many who can hear what "nothing" really is. I fell in love with that sound, or the lack thereof. Silence was the best thing to talk to, it never responds back.
My love for solitude became more apparent as I got older. To be content in silence enables the most exquisite form of entertainment in one's mind. Though nothing is ever quiet enough, I coveted the night for when my half of the world was mute. Throughout my life, there weren't many people to talk to, but there wasn't much to say either. Most of my days were spent sequestered in my bedroom, alone. Making time to be alone was actually quite easy; you simply don't make any plans to begin with. Yes, it was lonely at times, but loneliness is one of the many emotions humans never seem to fully understand. We spend more time in isolation than we think; it's when either sadness or love makes us realize what it truly means to be lonely.
It was loneliness that made me perpetrate such desperate and wick acts and it was love that drove me to do it. However, loneliness is not solely to blame for my sins committed—that I'm aware of and take full responsibility for the deed—but to say it wasn't a contributing factor would be false. Due to the fear of being lonelier than I was before, I am now left with an unfortunate story to tell. In my short lifetime, I've fallen in love twice. Simultaneously, one loved me for my adoration, the other loved me for my presence. Yet in this tortuous love triangle, I chose to adore with no understanding of what it felt like to be welcomed by my existence. Reciprocation was an incomprehensible word in my vocabulary, and the love I received for my constant devotion was nothing but a mirage.
A common pass time in my room was lying on the floor underneath my window, facing the wall in a fetal position. With one hand supporting my head, the other traced over the little bumps of paint of the wall, picking at the ones that were stuck out too far. It was the part of my room that was mostly quiet during the day, as I laid upon a plush area rug that absorbed most ambient noises. When it was particularly quiet, I'd stop picking the paint and hold still until aware of my own pulse. The calmer I became, my heart rate slowed dramatically, to a point where a mortician could pronounce me dead. When reaching this point, I timed it, then listened to the silence in-between beats.
Those fractions of pure silence in between the beats of my heart felt like sharing my blood with another body, each millisecond became a new form of ecstasy, the mere thought of it makes the hairs on my neck prick up. It was within those sporadic moments that a voice began inside my head. At first, the language it spoke to me in was hard to decipher, but the better I got at concentrating on raw silence, its volume grew. This voice was brooding and deep yet spoke so mellifluously, it left me bewitched. Though this voice had nothing much to say, I was envious of it. With a slick forked tongue, it called out to me amongst the subtle ambiance of my ears and what I heard was a voice I wished to possess.
At first, this presence was alarming, swept with the perturbed idea that my brain created voices due to my excessive self-isolation, but this voice did not come from within my imagination. It was as if the voice was Harpocrates himself, and he came to me as a friend. One night he asked me to be a part of my world, and with a gentle nod I invited him in through my window. This voice revealed himself to me as an apparition. With a wide smile, the corners of his lips stretched from ear to ear, his skin delicate like porcelain. He wore a cloak of the darkest shade of navy, but the rest of his body bled into the night like ink on paper. Moonlight spilled through the window and stained my floor, but in this restricted light, his eyes still reflected pools of warm honey. There was a youthful presence about him that reminded me of myself yet he bared such confidence I was left no choice but to be submissive to his words. As he conversed with me, the two of us never opened our mouths once.
He told me stories of the gods that were never conceived into writings, that the poets and philosophers were repugnant to assume they punished mortals with discord and sickness. They did no such thing, he told me, that the pain and disease humans carry is brought upon themselves. When finished, he disclosed that it would be a long time until I could see or talk to him again, or maybe never at all. In a compromise, he promised to speak to me whenever I found that sweet spot of unadulterated silence. He proposed that I'll never be lonely again under the condition that a part of him resides in the base of my skull.
"If I may add..." he said with a serpentine voice, "...just one more condition. Speak to me and only me. But before you agree to my terms, consider that my presence will challenge your sanity, for which to others I appear to be nothing more than a delusion. Accept me and only me, and I will whisper every pleasantry and every story spoken by man."
I obliged.
The voice bid me farewell, but it came to my realization that he never said his name. As I watched his eyes retreat back out my window, I called out to him, verbally this time. "If you wanted to be my friend, then you would've told me what your name is." My voice broke that perfect silence, echoing throughout the room as if it were shouted into the widest of canyons. The voice stopped, smirked, then placed a thin boney finger to his lips. My head began to radiate with warmth, similarly to how it feels to be embarrassed (or in this instance, terrified). His eyes backed further away until they became two amber specks in the distance. Then, like extinguished candles, they disappeared.
It was hard to tell if I took a breath the entire time we spoke, and after a deep inhale, I noticed the room was filled with the faint smell of roses. Falling into a deep, restful sleep, I tried convincing myself that the interaction was just another surreal dream. For the remainder of the night, I dreamt of the gods, but even my own imagination couldn't conjure up a fraction of the details described to me by Silence. When I awoke to the sound of songbirds, for once in my life, I understood what it felt like to be truly alone.
