Silence

I woke up with none of that usual early morning lethargy. Twisting
my head to the side, my cheek came into contact with the cool, white
satin of the pillow, it felt so very cold and so very smooth against my
face. I was chilled and shivered. Paul always wanted to have the
bedroom window open at night, I preferred it closed, since being a
child I had felt the cold more than most.

Straightening my head, I lay perfectly still, listening to the silence.
It wasn't the kind of silence that comes when the kid's have gone out
to play on a Sunday afternoon, and Paul's fixing the car, leaving the
house blissfully empty bar me and the cat. I love that silence. And it
wasn't the kind of silence that you get when you leave the searing
meditaranian heat to step into a monastery when you are abroad. That's
a serene silence that swirls an essence of peace and well being around
anything it touches. It is distinctive and belongs with votive candles,
and statues of the Black Madonna. This silence was unnerving, a
sinister silence. A silence strong in the certain knowledge that once
it took hold, it would never end. In fact it wasn't even a silence --
it was a nothing. A gaping, great, empty nothingness.

For ten more seconds she lay still, listening. Hoping for the sounds of
other people's lives still going on around her. The sound of birds,
music, voices. Just noise.

And then the silence ended with a piercing scream that rose up through
six feet of freshly placed earth.

It wasn't quiet anymore, along with her screaming and crying there was
scratching, scratching, scratching.