Just Break the Silence

There is a secluded section of the beach on the edge of town, where the couples go at night to frolic in the occasional grass, which digs into their thighs as they fall down. Empty bottles, pill packets and condom wrappers aren’t as startling there any more, as they are in the city, where people would ooh and ah as some environmentally inconsiderate bastard dropped a piece of paper onto the chipping tar.

The surf often rolls in so far, that whatever is left behind gets drenched and stolen by the sea, which, unlike its abandoners, can find some use for it. There is a hill to one side, which hides behind it whatever lights the town isn’t afraid to turn on at night. During the day though, there are no lights, and no visitors. Just old wrappers and girls who have poured out enough of their souls to be considered empty.

And Celeste, of course. She sits there, away from the anguish and pain of whatever might have been, reading her book. And the wave crashes in on an unsuspecting seashell, and she hears it. She laughs and rejoices as another thump beats the life out of something that hardly exists.

She had to leave all those rooms she had to visit. She had to spit in the faces of all those people requesting her life story, because now that she’s like everybody else, it suddenly becomes important. She doesn’t need to share it with the world, she just wants to keep it to herself – keep the beauty of the keys of the piano inside her mind, rather than roll it off her tongue for the world to see and to hear.

They don’t need to know about her rebirth. It’s something she, and she alone, has to know. The way she suddenly turned from an almost grown woman into a newborn child – it is secret. It is for her to be a part of.

She gets up, leaving her book in the sand. She’s read it five times over already. She doesn’t need it any more. She doesn’t have to see or imagine now. She has all she needs.

Celeste walks over to the water and dangles one foot above the sea. She laughs at the faraway call of a ship. The sun is high above her, and there is no one else here. No one else. They are all doing the things they never seemed to question.

She was five years old when she first got lost in the world. She simply woke up in a room and all she could feel was the whiteness around her and the roughness of the sheets. There were no sounds. Not even the dim hum inside her head that kept her safe at night.

Her mother was there. She was sitting in a chair, gazing through the window, not noticing her daughter’s waken state. She seemed so much smaller now – she had shrunk. Her skin – it was no longer the caramel shade Celeste was accustomed to. It was white – whiter than the walls around her. There was a freshly grey streak in the rich brown of her hair. Why did she put it there? It wasn’t very pretty. She wasn’t supposed to be like the other mums – they were always changing their hair. She was just her mum.

Celeste called her over, but no sounds came out. She tried again, louder this time. And though her throat whined and protested, there was still nothing.

Her mother, though, heard the silent calls. She was by her side in an instant, stroking her face, opening and closing her mouth, as though she, too, was trying to speak, but nothing was there. Was it this room? Did it stopper and silence the people inside?

Mum! Mum! Mum! Mum! Mum! Still nothing. Her throat was sore. Her head was sore. Everything was wrong. Everything was bad.

Her mother reached over and pressed something, and in a second, a thousand or more nurses flooded into the silent room, opening and closing their mouths like fish. Stupid fish. Didn’t they know it was in vain? Didn’t they know they were in a strange new world?

Didn’t they know Celeste was reborn as somebody else?

For years after that, she had struggled in this new world. She didn’t belong. She couldn’t link herself to it, no matter how much she tried.

This was before he came along. Before she first watched as his fingers danced over those keys.

And those people in all those rooms – they had asked her how it happened. They had accused her of lying. They had stolen her medical records, searching for surgeries, check-ups, prescriptions, anything that could have brought her senses back. But there was nothing. Nothing but that. Nothing but the sounds she couldn’t hear.

It was for nobody to know that she watched as his hands moved, so brilliantly, so perfectly, that she had to know the reason for the movements. She just had to.

And one day, she did. She had put on an old videotape and sat right near the screen, waiting for those fingers to come back into view. She was waiting for a miracle. And it happened. There was a twang, and a ring, and a flow of something she hadn’t heard in ten thousand years. It was quiet, at first. But it was the sort of quiet that brought a grown man to tears. It was full of so much melody, so much purity, that Celeste had to be a part of it. She stared and stared, and listened and listened, and until the last note was played, she did not jump up and sing a line in a voice she had forgotten.

So it went from there on. There were parties, there were meetings, there were conversations, there were interviews, there were formal dinners, for which her shrunken mother had dressed her like a doll.

“How did you feel after the accident, twelve years ago? Did you feel deprived?” they all asked. Followed by, “How do you feel now that you have your hearing back?”

Why didn’t they know? She had already told them all the answers – they were all the same to her. They should have known, instead of asking her over and over again. Yes, it felt bad, and yes it feels good. What else could she tell them?

The man with the fingers the colour of sleet wouldn’t search for her, demanding she save him like he saved her. The man with the fingers would never know of her, though if he did, he wouldn’t know that he was the one who made her true again.

He broke the silence, and showed her that it was real. This world was real. This life was real. It was all real.

Though he would never know, because she would never tell them.

Celeste throws off her dress and plunges into the water. She doesn’t care what lifeless soul can see her now – seeing alone in a gift. It has always been. She laughs as the splashes hit her skin, sending chills down her body. The body that feels. There is a pressing hum as she lets the water take her for a moment, before the seagulls are once again screaming, and the ships are moaning and her voice is heard in the distance, everywhere, and nowhere.

The feeling is hers, and hers alone.