Sunday, May 11  

Silent

Everything’s gone jarringly silent.

silent: adjective 1. Making no sound or noise. 2. Temporarily unable or unwilling to speak, as from shock or fear. 3. Not voiced or expressed.

Vic doesn’t know what to make of the cotton batting that seems to have swaddled everything noisy in her life.

She keeps her phone beside her no matter what part of her apartment she happens to be sitting in. Looks at it frequently, marveling at its mute glow. She even picks it up a few times and gives it a weak shake.

Vics greatest fear as a child (besides spiders) was that the world could easily forget about her. That she would be in her room so long, so quiet, so silent, that everyone and everything would finally stop minding her. Which, at first, she might enjoy. Until the panic sets in. It isn’t nice to be forgotten about.

The few times Vic has taken drugs or had far too much to drink, she has always felt fine until she started hearing the silences between sounds or got caught alone in the expanse of thumping silence in her bed. That’s what always makes her sick at the end. Take, for example, the time she took E with her girlfriend.

She and Belle had been out for supper one night. Vic was feeling quiet. Uncommunicative. In frustration, Belle suggested that they take some E together because, she said, it would help them connect. (Vic always had a hard time connecting emotionally with the women she slept with). Vic agreed because she wanted to try it. Just a little bit of it. And Belle knew someone who could get it for them.

They each bit down on their tiny white pills, crumbing half into their mouths and swallowing with water. They waited. Everything was normal. Vic kissed Belle right there in the crowded club because she felt it was important to set the stage for a positive experience. She said "I'm so happy that we're going to experience this together."

They waited longer. Everything still normal. Belle suggested they take the other half. Vic agreed. Two minutes later, the first half must have arrived, because Vic's head suddenly iced over, cracked open and blue flowers, pretty as god, tumbled out. She smiled at Bella who smiled at her back.

It was nice.

Until it wasn't nice anymore.

Soon Vic was getting weirded out by the strange cool trickling of sweat between her breasts. She does not like to be out of control. The music in the club seemed to get louder. Sharper. The lights greener, more intense. Vic felt like she was in a spotlight. But that nobody was watching. She felt very, ultimately alone.

Bella reached over and pulled Vic in close. She said "I think we were meant to meet. I believe you're meant for me. Do you think so too?"

Vic couldn't speak. She couldn't make her mouth move. She didn't want to hear what her voice might sound like. So instead, she murmered something, nothing really, and closed her eyes. She stayed there in Bella's throat for the next 5 hours, excepting drinks of water and one disastrous trip to the washroom. The music began shattering into bits. Where it started out on a continuous fluid beat, it began to break apart into separate notes. Thump. .... swing .... beat. ... trill.

The silences between the notes were agonizing. They felt like minute, private wells of loss to Vic and she shuddered everytime she fell into one.

Long digression aside, the point is that Vic hates silence. She hates having time to think too much. She requires control and interaction or she begins to worry that she doesn't actually exist.

Today, 2 days after William rushed off, Vic's apartment feels hollow. She is full of silent longing to hear the warble of her telephone just to assure her that she is still here.