A Still Life
Have you ever noticed there's a lot of noise around these days? Cars speeding along, their horns blaring. People are always talking or, rather, shouting at each other. I'd prefer to live in my dream, a dream I had one night, where it was all gone and everything was peaceful and calm, safe, like in a womb.
The day I met up with my friend she was being excessively noisy as usual, talking about people I couldn't give less of a shit about, but I grinned and bore it. I eventually just closed my eyes and went back to my dream, to the peace, wishing she would stop. When I opened my eyes next...she was gone. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit pleased, but I'm sure I should have heard her leave. She always makes a big fuss about doing the tiniest things, so I waited ten minutes in case she just popped to the loo, but she didn't come back. I went looking for her outside, but she wasn't there either. I reasoned she probably got offended that I was ignoring her and left without saying anything. I'd just have to go to her house and apologize tomorrow.
After a night of my parents arguing, yet again, I went to my friend's house to see if she was there. I knocked on the door as usual and greeted them as I normally do and asked if she was in. They looked at me blankly and asked if I had the right house. This was weird. When I tried to show I knew them by telling them things about their lives they got creeped out and threatened to call the police, so I left. It wasn't worth getting the police involved in anyway. I took a bus home, since usually it helps me clear my head as people are usually quiet and keep to themselves on public transport. Not that day, that day a scabby little shit was playing their music at an obnoxiously loud volume for all to hear. The worst thing was he was right behind me. I tried to tune him out and ignore him. I eventually resorted to closing my eyes and covering my ears. I still heard the music blaring in that unintelligible bass, however, and as I reached my breaking point, I wished he would vanish off the face of the planet, that he never existed. I got up to shout at him but his seat was empty. He was gone, without a trace, and I knew he had been behind me a second ago. The bus driver and the other passengers didn't show any reaction to what had happened. At this point, even I was getting a little freaked out.
Getting home was my only concern then. I would focus, then I would find out what happened to them, what was happening around me. It was unfortunate, though, that my parents were arguing when I got home. I avoided them and went to my room. I started to search the web for anything I could, to try and explain what was happening, but all I found was nothing. After two tiring hours I gave up, but they were still arguing and the baby was screeching, that fucking noisy baby, and I wished, oh god why did I wish, I wished for silence. I went to the peaceful place and then the silence came: no shouting, no screeching, no noise at all. I went downstairs and saw my parents sitting watching television. I asked if one of them should check on Connor because he'd stopped crying and they gave me the same look my friend's parent's did. This was when I started to properly panic. Had I just make my little brother disappear? I tried explaining it to my parents, but they didn't understand. Eventually, they checked me in to a mental health clinic.
The psychiatrist there was the worst, always talking, making noise, wanting me to join in, trying to disprove what I knew was real. He said that the things I believed were fiction, stories I had created. It got too much for me. I tried to visualize the peace then: I closed my eyes and ears to the world, but when I opened them he was still there.
I had to take matters into my own hands. It was quiet the night I snuck out, I was quiet when I crept up behind him, I was quiet as I took the jagged piece of broken light bulb and dragged it across his throat. In that moment he was perfect and silent.
As snow fell around me, I went home and curled up in my bed. I was woken up a few hours later by a violent shaking: my parents looked like they were shouting at me, but I couldn't hear them. Still, they were disturbing the peace of the morning, so again I took the broken light bulb from under my pillow and made them perfect.
The sirens came the next day, as the snow kept falling. I hated the noise, I despised it. I saw the police, I saw the world, I heard every noise, every person, every animal, every noisy thing, and I wished...and the world became peaceful and perfect.
It's been two days since the sirens stopped, but something doesn't feel quite right, like the peace is incomplete. I went outside but the snow hasn't stopped. The people are gone and so are the noises they made. I stopped and listened and I heard my own heart beating, thumping away. It consumed my entire world, my entire being. The peace was being disturbed. There was only one option.
There will be peace, there will be perfection, there will be complete, unbroken Quiet.
