Silence Except
He's tired. It's been a long day, as the city silently tears itself to pieces.
He and his friends sat in the common rooms that afternoon, gathered in a circle on the couches, all twiddling their thumbs. Somewhere, a TV was turned on. Laryngitis, the newscaster said. His friends' faces disagreed.
In the halls that night, so many people were crying, shoulders heaving with inexpressible distress. He didn't cry – he had three older siblings, two of which were brothers who would have ragged on him endlessly if he'd ever cried as a kid. Besides, his younger sister would have tried to comfort him then as best she could and he couldn't stand to see her worry. In other words, he had a lot of practice at not crying.
So he just calmly climbed into bed, gazing across the empty spaces to his roommate's unused bed. Luckily for the roommate, he had been on vacation before the mess began.
Even though he didn't cry, he had to admit he was worried. How could a whole town lose their voices in one night like this? It was crazy.
He was dozing off, hours later, when a knock sounded. He was usually a heavy sleeper, what with the baby of the house crying at all hours, but it was dead silent everywhere else, and the reverberations of fist against wood was ridiculously noticeable. He sat upright, rubbed his eyes, and opened the doors.
They tumbled in, the rough straps of their broken straightjackets jingling softly as they dragged him back to the bed. Gentlemen in suits with distorted grins and silvery teeth followed smoothly, floating above the ground.
He panicked and didn't fight back as hard as he could have. Who are these people? What are these people? And are they the reason why I can't scream now?
And believe me, he tried. He strained and he stretched and he threw back his head with the vocal chords in his throat creaking and still nothing happened.
His thoughts degenerated. He tried to stay calm, but he couldn't help but think of his sisters, of his brothers, of that house on the river and the way the trees smelled when it rained. He thought about the stars he loved to gaze at and he thought of his friends, and he thought of how he was never going to grow up to be a forensic anthropologist like he had wanted to. All these things were racing through his mind and he wanted so much to sing them out loud, to scream them to heavens.
All was silent as one small, shining knife was plucked from a bag.
All was silent as they grinned.
All was silent, except for the sound of his flesh being cut open.