You want to hear a gun fire, you think, you’d like to hear the sound of the bullet’s ricochet off the wall as it finds a place to embed itself. You want to hear something, anything, so long as it drowns out the suffocating silence of this godforsaken cold night.
You hate the quiet, because when it’s quiet you have no choice but to think. Your thoughts rattle through your brain without a determined destination, like a tourist wandering in and out of buildings he doesn’t really care about.
In the distance you hear the low hum of city traffic, a light buzz on the horizon that isn’t quite enough to stop the rushing waves in your brain- tugging and pulling you to wherever they please. You imagine your body being pushed into a jutted, rocky shore that’s begging for a taste of human flesh. Your attempt to swim away is in vain, as though some magnetic force were pulling you back faster and harder than the waves pushing you.
You remember your parent’s argument, and that’s enough to make you shove your hand into your pocket and produce an MP3 player. The slow rhythm of the first song rolls in, and isn’t long until you feel the gradual recede of the once angry waves, pulling you away from danger. It’s only a temporary fix, you notice that the battery is near to dead and you curse yourself for not recharging it earlier.
You’ll call your friend, maybe, take part in idle chatter you really don’t care for. Anything to fight the silence.
You hate the quiet.