Beware of the Quiet

By Terveen Gill

Quiet can never be calm.

That’s equivalent to calling a fool a saint.

The apparent lack of intellect isn’t a sign of holiness.

Quiet is the absence of sound, the deficiency of noise, silencing the exterior din so that the inner chaos can be placated.

Have you ever heard of the quiet before a storm?

What if I reveal that the quiet is the storm?

Ever care to peek into the mind of a quiet person? How about wade in the mush of a quiet heart?

You’ll be sucked in, ripped apart and won’t ever find the pieces to put yourself back together again.

Not convinced?

You are brave or maybe stupid.

Quiet is a way of keeping ‘it’ all contained.

What is ‘it’?

Oh, don’t make me go there.

Alright, if you wish.

‘It’ is the messy closet in your bedroom. ‘It’ is the dirt you sweep beneath the carpet. ‘It’ is the annoying aunt who never has anything nice to say.

‘It’ is the pain, the hurt, the trauma, the shame, the guilt, the abnormal, the devastation – all the things you wish weren’t inside you, but they’ve ganged up on you and are here to stay.

Roguish tenants who don’t pay their rent, so you kick them into the basement, and pretend that they’ve left.

One moment please. Let me finish laughing at this absurd fantasy.

You can’t disclose the truth and you don’t have the acumen to lie.

That’s when the quiet drifts in like an outlaw in the mood for a brawl.

If you weren’t such a wimp, you would’ve talked, cried, and screamed for it to go away.

But instead, the quiet takes over and silence becomes the key to survival. The reason you can tolerate yourself and others.

Isn’t silence bliss? No, it’s like stale piss.

It stinks up your spirit and takes you with it down the toilet.

I might be doomed, but you still have a chance.

Beware of the quiet.

Don’t let it near you. Keep yourself guarded.

What? You have nothing to say?

Damn! It already got you.