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I wish it was quiet all the time.
Okay, maybe that’s some kind of hyperbole. If the world was quiet all the time, I’d assume it was down to the fact that there was some species of monster rampant across the globe that was forcing everyone to be quiet in order to survive. Sometimes, I can admit that it’s too quiet. There are those little moments where you just wish that someone would say something, say anything. But they’re few and far between.
If you asked me whether I’d rather hang out with my basketball team or with Pam, well. My answer would be obvious to everyone but Pam herself. Apart from the fact that it’s her, I just find it easier to be around smaller groups of people. Especially those who can really understand what I’m all about. Especially those who know that I really, really like the quiet. Like Pam.
I like playing that Jinx game, because it means I get to be quiet, and I just get to hear her talk. That way, I won’t have to hear my own voice, and the stupid words that I say, instead focusing on her. On the quiet, on the pauses in between everything she says.
Sometimes, I prefer it when neither of us say anything. I like to think that, if my existence purely consisted of the two of us, standing on that stupid booze cruise on a freezing January evening, saying nothing whilst gazing at each other, I’d have nothing to complain about. No forced, convoluted conversations. No sympathetic laughter. Just quiet.
It wasn’t really ever quiet growing up, Tom and Pete made sure of that. Even Larissa would have her moments. There was always somebody screaming at the very least, in a house of six, about this or that. It usually wasn’t me. That was a note that I would get a lot from my teachers, whenever the dreaded report came out. ‘Very quiet in class. Could excel with further contributions.’ Or something of a similar strand. Despite the same comments being made, I never conformed to what it was they asked of me. Truly, it was because I liked to be quiet. Watch the world pass me by, as a mere bystander to the constant ticking of the clock.
A lot of the guys on the basketball team, or my colleagues, don’t really understand this. Most of them love to have that balance of chaos in life. And I have to admit, I do enjoy instigating shenanigans from time to time, mainly because of the sheer mundaneness of my everyday life and work. While these are fun pass times, the best times are when it’s quiet. When it’s ambient, with nothing but the occasional ringing of the phone or the whirring of the fax machine. The clicking of Pam’s mouse as she picks up another win in a secret game of solitaire. These are the times when I feel most at home.
Occasionally, I sit next to Pam when we have lunch, and I like to listen to her draw. I mean, it’s equally as interesting to observe her as she does so. But there’s just something even more satisfying about the scrape of the mechanical pencil against the paper, the brushing of the eraser marks away from the paper using her hand. I could close my eyes and listen to it forever, and, yet again, I’d have nothing to complain about.
Of an evening, I lie awake in bed, my mind occupied with numerous topical issues of the day. I run my fingers along the material of my duvet and deceive my eyes into thinking that there are patterns on the ceiling, a multitude of swirls twisting this way and that with great conviction, depending on how creative I feel. I think about her, imagine what it would be like if she was lying here next to me. She’d be much better at seeing the swirls than me. Part of me reckons she always has been.
More than anything else, I enjoy listening to the nighttime ambiance. The occasional hum of cars, the chatter of folk, the sound of Mark playing a game downstairs as he sometimes lets an almighty cry of anguish or victory. The sound of my body turning over, the material working to move with me. This, I think to myself. This is what quiet really is.
The morning inevitably rolls over, and the alarm clock disturbs my quiet time. It might be part of a morning ambiance, but not a variation that I find best pleasing. I like to hear the twitter of the overly chirpy birds, the continued rush of cars, the creak of the bed springs beneath my weight. This is a serene variation of quiet, but without the image of her there, it doesn’t carry much impact. At least at night, I’m allowed to think whatever I like. The quiet allows me to wear my disguise, pretend that I don’t love her with all my heart.
Days pass by. My repertoire of quiet noises that I enjoy gradually expands. A smile reaches my lips when I hear these noises, because it allows me to dare to dream that maybe this is a feeling of nostalgia that I might one day dare to look back on fondly.
I even love it when we sit across from each other and she smiles at me, her head turned to the side, pearly whites gleaming. I don’t say anything. She doesn’t say anything. We merely gaze at each other for a few solitary seconds. Something tells me she knows that I like quiet. That I really, really like quiet. Maybe even that I love it.
God. I wish it was quiet when I tell her. I want to take a carton of superglue and lather it on my big mouth, so that I’m allowed to be tranquil forever. To stop myself from coming out with the stupid stuff that I do. To fully embrace the quiet, let it wash over me, bead by bead. Envelope me, dissolve me.
Kisses are quiet, but somehow also so, so loud. When I kiss her, we’re quiet. But my heart is telling her so much. I love you. You may as well take my heart, it’s already full of you. Using my heart, I’m telling her what my mouth can’t, or rather, isn’t allowed to say. I want her to know everything, and I want to say it whilst being quiet.
When she tells me that she’s still going to go through with it, something falls upon us. It isn’t quiet. It’s silence, and silence cuts so much deeper than quiet. When I let go of her, we become unanimously silent. She has nothing left to say to me. I still have so much to say to her. My love for the quiet becomes blinding.
I spend the next multiple months of my life being quiet. I’m quiet when I pretend to love another, I’m quiet as I pretend to want a job that’ll cause me nothing but misery. A job that won’t let me enjoy the quiet. A partner who thinks my adoration for all things quiet is simply an allegory for something, or, someone else.
So I come back to her. It’s one of my favourite ambient noises as I open the door to the conference room and hear the creek, the padding of my feet against the carpeted floor. I lay my gaze upon her, and finally, after eternities spent apart, I get to hear my all time favourite noise. Her voice.
Above all else, I get to hear the word that cuts through years of imminent quiet, with the eventual silence that subsequently follows. The word that is cemented as my favourite of hers, as she makes history, once again becoming my favourite sound in the entire world. “Yes.”
Maybe I don’t want it to be quiet anymore.
I just want to talk to her forever.