Tuesday, 15 September 2009

• Fighting the Silence

  
  

  People underestimate silence. People tend to try to escape silence through noise and music, their channel for escape. Ironically, silence makes the loudest noise a mortal can hear. It's a clear cut piece. The one that makes the coldest cut. Also the one that serves as the warmest cuddle.
  

  To start off. let me tell you. I loathe small talks. The need to try to pick up pathetic lines to fill in that creeping silence, the cliche "so....what do you do around here?" or heck "gosh. the weather, smoldering innit," (seriously?) but then again, who knows maybe the person wouldn't turn out to be Mr-I-only-talk-to-my-stuff-toys and it might just turn out to be a pretty good talk. And if he DID turn out to be Mr-I-need-a-therapist, admit it. You bring your phone out and pretend to be busy.
  
  The next kind of silence? It's the one that comes with fear.  When you're alone, no one's around and instead of Count Dracula's laughter filling the scenario, its just silence. That eerie physical silence. Now, there's two scenarios here, you can be shit afraid till your poop comes out from your viscera, or you could be one with yourself and be oblivious to the silence that envelops you. Well, if you're alone and stuck in the Amazon and your only skills of survival is watching Survivors and Lost, you would probably be full aware of what I'm talking about.
  

  At the point, people tend to talk to themselves. They try to talk to themselves out of the fear, the sound of their voice would probably be whats reminding them that they're still alive. On normal occasion, you would have been passed of as a weirdo, however, in the presence of oh-the-mighty silence, you're just human.

  Now, there's one more kind of silence which we humans tend to forgo. The silence when you shut up. It's amazing really, how quiet it can be when you shut up. It's when you close up your perspective and for once, see what others have to say. Sometimes, (if genes are on your side) you might just passed off as being the "wise one". I should learn how to appreciate this kind of silence seeing that I tend to talk my way out of sanity. The world could do with it too.
  

  There are two type of people -- the listeners and the talkers. But here's a point. Everyone has something to convey. and if you don't shut the talker up, how the hell will the listeners get to talk eh. And I believe, it's during this kind of silence when people grow. They mold as their ideas morph with a new opinion. They stand a little taller, they knew a little more.
  
  I would get into the whole "mushy comfortable silence" but, whats the point, you wouldn't understand until you experienced it yourself. The silence of which invisible words seem to hang in the air, where words are deemed unnecessary and theres no need to speak, as what they have is time. That makes me wonder, how do people cope with the silence by the deathbed? or the silence before someone leave? infact, why do they stay silent? Wouldn't you want to say everything you need to say before they depart, or would it hurt too much to say anything at all. or. was it when nothing matter already and being there with the person is just enough? I ask myself if I were to see a person I love and cherish leave, what would I say to the person? "I used your toothbrush to clean the toilet once. " nah.
  
  But the main thing I decided to compose this piece out of the blue? I want to tell you about the silence that hurts. oh no. I'm not talking about the silence where you storm out of a fight leaving with a capital F oscillating in mid air, those are the silence that show how much you care. Those are the silence to wake a person up where the next action will determine the course of their relationship.
  
  You see,  Silence with a person I can't stand, I can cope. Silence with a person I love, I can cope.  But, silence with a person I'm familiar with? This is by far the worst form of blasphemy. To be sitting in a room with a person you once had everything to talk about and somehow somewhere, the radar turned red, is cruel. The fast paced chattering which dies down to a "yeaaaa." followed by that dreadful silence is painful. It's as though a big chunk of  glass barrier had just stepped in between both of two. And the worst part of it? You have to rack your head to actually think of something to talk about. Hell! Why should you! Exactly, the silence that turned into an awkward silence, but you won't turn on the headphones this time, because you know this person, and you once had an incredible something, yea. something. ( to make it worst, you two probably were a prodigious pair! ).
  

  This kind of silence can happen between best friends and lovers, mothers and daughters, father and son. The silence that tells you, things have changed, regardless you like it or not. You realize you don't really care anymore, and the silence can consume you and eat you up for all you want. At times, you wish you could get the hell out of that place or probably not need to see that person again, just so you could move on from life. It's the silence where you realize the familiar had turned into a region so alien and you're so vulnerable. But I'll tell you one thing. This silence will drag on. And it'll monopolize whatever left between you two. And picking things up from the aftermath? You'll never reach the same picture again.
  
  If you can pick things up and hit it off again right away, well, good for you. And if you don't, that's just too bad, really. If no one fights for it. It'll rot. That's the way it goes. It'll rot until it becomes nothing. And by all honesty, that's what I've learned.
  

  Have you ever had to fight the silence in your relationship?
  

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