Apathy by L.K. Reid

The sound of silence.

I’ve heard that phrase so many times, but I never knew what it really meant. Not until now.

Or maybe I still didn’t know what it was. Maybe this silence was only inside my head while the rest of the world kept screaming.

Crying.

Asking for help.

Actually, now that I thought about it, all of us were screaming. Just constantly fucking screaming—some silently, some loudly, some with a smile on their face. There was no age, no race or gender limit, but every single one of us had some kind of pain. We carried it somewhere deep inside of our chests, in our bones, in the smallest atoms of our bodies. We carried it and learned to live with it.

But we shouldn’t have to. Right?

We shouldn’t have to live with it. We shouldn’t have to suffocate—day after day, month after month, and year after year, until the screaming became too much for us to bear. Until our vocal cords became too sore, and our bodies couldn’t handle the pain overflowing us. Until we decided it was too much, too long, and we decided to stop it.

We shouldn’t have any kind of pain to carry at all. It pissed me off, this unfairness life always threw at us. Didn’t it piss you off?

I bet it did. I bet you wanted to change something so many times. I bet you wanted to scream and laugh, and love and hug. I bet you wanted to be happy before life decided to fuck you up and cast you aside as if you never meant anything. As if it was your fault, you were dealt this shitty hand in life. It wasn’t your fault. It was never your fucking fault.

My whole life, I wanted to get to this point. To stop feeling, to stop thinking, to stop the shit suffocating me. And here I was, finally surrounded by the sound of silence, and I didn’t know what to do. Monsters weren’t here anymore. They couldn’t hurt me any longer. It felt great.

Floating.

Silent.

Weightless.

I just wanted this feeling to last, but I knew it couldn’t. I felt the reality lurking on the edges of my mind. I knew what was coming, what I found myself in, but I didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to think about it, even though I knew.

There were sicknesses in this world even holy water couldn’t wash away.