jml297

Molly thought back to the comfortable silences that she used to share with her parents. It was something that she had taken for granted, thinking that those pockets of time when there was no need to speak were part of the soundscape of normal life. She had found a similar kind of companionable silence with her best friend. It wasn’t unusual for them to simply sit together and be, talking when the mood struck, then lapsing back into their thoughts.

But silences with Gary were something different altogether. It wasn’t until they’d moved in together that she realised how he seemed to need noise and conversation. He was more talkative than she was, but until they’d started sharing the same space, she hadn’t appreciated that there were different interpretations of silence.

Molly liked to listen to music as she prepared meals or completed chores. Gary liked music, but it was always loud, with a driving bass that thumped about the room. It drove her nuts, the relentless beat, but it was better than listening to the inane nattering on talkback radio or the racing guide.

Molly had spoken to Gary about how she relished quiet sometimes, especially after long days in the classroom with rowdy children that required wrangling. She thought of the all too rare quiet times she was able to have in the classroom. The lessons in creative writing came to mind. She loved sitting at her desk, looking out over the room at the neatly lined rows of desks, at the bowed heads and busy hands. The scratch of pen on paper, or how Dylan moved his lips as he wrote, quietly sounding out longer words, the clock beating a metronomic pulse as the minutes passed.

Her least favourite silence was after a disagreement with Gary. He could use silence as a weapon. It was the signal of his withdrawal from her, made more acute by his physical presence. It was a such a contrast to his usual noise and chatter. She knew it was passive-aggressive, and that it wouldn’t last. But as the silence lengthened, she felt a compulsion to break it. In an odd role reversal, Molly heard herself start to chatter. Her usual reticence disappeared as words burbled out. It seemed to flow around the room, but Gary would not be drawn into the conversational tide. He would look at a point slightly above her head. It was maddening, and she eventually ran out of words, exhausted by their ineffectiveness.

Once, she turned on the radio, tuned to the racing channel, in desperation. But Gary had got up and left the room, creating another kind of uneasy silence.

This was written to a prompt at my local writing group.

Photo: old-style radio