Sound of Silence

The wind whooshed around the shiny silver shell. Then the parachute opened, and silence took over.

T-5

Late summer breeze brushed the grass and swayed the red maples. They groaned gently as the leaves prepared to say goodbye.

Steve was sat cross-legged on the porch, sanding a wooden deer figurine. The wind pulled the shavings up in the air and they caught in his throat.

It put him in a coughing fit.

“Stubborn as an ox! You never listen,” Mary said.

She was fighting to keep the clothesline still. The white shirts swung back and forth, already dried, blasted by the sun and blown by the wind.

She put her hands on her waist and watched her husband.

“You should have taken the tar syrup. And you should have stayed home!”

Steve waved his hand, as if chasing flesh flies away.

“I’m fine,” he said and coughed another bout.

“Like an ox,” Mary muttered under her breath. She grabbed a red shirt from the pile and reached for the line.

A gust of wind pushed it away.

“Oh curse this!” she yelled.

“Momma! Language!” a girl yelled. “It’s him. He runs around all day and makes wind!”

Mary turned around and looked at her daughter.

Leanne was sitting on a checkered picnic cloth. An array of wooden dolls were strewn on the ground, split apart by childish impatience.

“Honey, we’ve talked about this. He’s not real.”

“He’s real momma! He’s a real ghost!”

Leanne was playing with two dolls, clanging them against each other.

“I saw him yesterday,” she said. “He was digging through daddy’s tools!”

“Is that why my planer is missing?”

Leanne giggled.

Mary hissed at him. “Don’t encourage her.”

T-4

“Daddy! Daddy!”

“What is it darling?”

“Emma and Pemma! They are stuck!”

Steve walked over.

“Here, give it,” he said and knelt down.

The tangle of arms and legs was jammed close. He wedged his thumbs between the two bodies and started pulling. He gently pried them apart, slowly opening a gap between them.

Then his right thumb slipped, and his hand smacked one of the dolls away.

“Crap,” he muttered.

“Emma!”

Leanne jumped in chase.

The doll’s body fell on the picnic cloth, but its head rolled away into the thick grass. The girl tried pushing the head onto the neck, but it wouldn’t stay.

“Oh darling, I’m so sorry,” Steve said. “Give it. Give me the doll, I’ll fix her.”

“It’s okay daddy. The man said Emma wanted to get away anyway.”

“Sweetie—”

“I know daddy, you don’t have to tell me. I’m not a baby anymore,” she said. “I know ghosts don’t exist.”

She put the broken doll in his hand and walked back to her spot.

“But he’s not just a ghost. He’s real.”

“Stay put,” Steve said. “I’ll fix Emma in a blink.”

T-3

Mary had just hung the red shirt when Steve stepped out from his shed. His eyebrows were furrowed thick.

“It won’t hold,” he said. “A piece must’ve broken off. It doesn’t fit right anymore.”

“She’ll cry it over. She’s too grown to be playing with dolls still.”

“Mary, she’s five.”

“I cooked for Nick when I was five. Pork stew and beans.”

“Yes, but your parents probably hunted ducks when they were five,” he said. “We’re more children than our parents. It’s the way of things. Let her stay a child, just a bit longer.”

They sat down on the wicker chairs in front of the house.

Steve chiseled pieces away from the doll’s body and head until the two were flat at the joint.

“It just needs a good sanding. It’ll hold.”

“I wish I had your patience,” Mary said. “Don’t get me wrong.” She paused. “But I’m glad you got that fever. I don’t think I could’ve endured Sonia’s dry turkey again. Once per year is enough.”

Steve smiled.

“She called me the other day. Said they had to throw out three pounds of roast chicken thighs. Even Sparkles was fed up at the end.”

He put the sanding paper on his knee, and started pushing the doll pieces slowly against it. Every few strokes he blew the dustings off his trousers and on the grass. He looked up for a moment, and the sun smacked him in the face, and yellow warmth radiated out from a point above his nose.

“I never got to help dad fix the kitchen window. Something always popped up, and that thing is heavy,” he said.

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

Sweat beads bubbled on his forehead, and started trickling down behind his ears. He kept sliding the wooden pieces against the sanding paper.

“I’d like us to drive up there come December.”

Mary was leaning back in her chair. Her shirt was undone and had fallen to the side, exposing her naked belly to the sun rays. A chill went up her spine when he spoke. She wound the shirt tight against her body again.

“I can’t understand you furry northerners. You’d sooner be buried in cold, grey snow, than have your body soaked in warm honey and tar.”

“I just know how much they want to see her.”

“And I know how much you want to get covered in snow.”

T-2

“I’d like to try for another,” Mary said.

She let her shirt fall to the side again, revealing her firm, freckled skin. The peering sun jumped on her immediately. She took Steve’s hand and it put it below her bellybutton.

“Everything’s good now. You have your job and your tools, and my sewing machine gets us a few dollars every week.”

Leanne was lying down, making whooshing sounds as she clanked the dolls against each other.

“She’ll be grown any day now. One more year and she’ll be off to school, and by the time the baby comes, she’ll be ready to look after it.”

She gripped Steve’s hand, and in doing so pushed the wooden pieces to the ground.

He gripped back.

A gust blew her brown curls back, revealing the smooth skin on her cheeks.

Steve put his hand there.

“I’d like that.”

He leaned in and kissed her.

They came apart a moment later.

Steve picked up the doll pieces and blew the dust away. He put glue on the joint, and pressed them together.

“Come,” he said. “Let’s go ask what the little devil says.”

T-1

“Leanne, darling!” he called.

The girl was sitting again.

“Your mother and I—”

She wasn’t listening.

“Daddy, look! It’s him again,” she said and pointed at the outhouse. “He’s out again!”

“Leanne—”

“It’s him daddy!”

“Who, darling?”

“The fat man! The fat man is there!”

The grey timber outhouse stood tilted at the edge of the lot. Its door swung free.

Steve squinted, and then his gaze froze.

“Mary,” he said. “Mary, do you see that?”

Mary pulled her shirt around her waist. Her eyes scanned the distance.

“What is it?”

The toilet door jerked suddenly and opened all the way. It strained against the hinges once, twice, and then came half-way closed again.

“The damn wind is going to blow this place apart!” she said.

Leanne giggled. “He’s gone to the toilet again!”

“Mary,” Steve whispered.

“What?”

Steve held one hand pressed against his brow, shading his eyes from the sun. He pointed at the sky.

The blue sky was a blank canvas.

At midday in August, not even crop dusters flew.

And yet, in the distance, a white cloth floated taut, weighed down by a shiny tear drop.

T-30

“What is that?”

“I— Uh, I don’t know,” he said. “Supplies, maybe?”

“But the war zone is thousands of miles away,” she said. “Maybe a drill? Has to be a drill, right?”

Steve looked around.

“There’s nothing else. No soldiers. No aircraft.”

“Is it close?”

He squinted his eyes harder.

“Ten, fifteen miles.”

Mary took a step back.

“Steve, I don’t like it.”

T-20

“What is it momma? Did you see the fat man too? I told you he was real!”

Leanne giggled again. “He’ll blow it to pieces!”

T-15

“Come Leanne, let’s go inside honey.”

Mary picked up the girl and headed toward the house. The doll fell on the pile with the others.

“Pemma! Pemma!”

T-10

Mary was on the porch. She turned back.

Steve was still looking at the floating ball.

T-6

Sun rays reflected off the shiny object and glistened in the distance.

T-3

“Steve, come inside!”

He couldn’t take his eyes off the shimmering dot.

He whispered.

“We should have gone north—”

The blue canvas was suddenly splashed with white.

Steve squeezed his eyes shut, but it wasn’t enough. His heart was racing through his eyelids. He put his forearm over them.

Light still got through, pushing between the gaps at the top and bottom of his vision.

After a few seconds, the light dimmed. He put down his arm and opened his eyes.

Someone had painted a red ball over the bright blue canvas.

He dropped the glued doll.

His body was screaming to pull him away, but his eyes stayed on the fireball.

“Steve,” Mary called behind him. “Steve, come.”

His legs wanted to run away.

The blue sky was gone.

Run.

A rustle of leaves came through the pine forest. Then another. Then dozens upon dozens of rustles fought over each other.

Then it became overwhelming.

He put his hands over his ears.

Behind the pine forest, a dust cloud rose up. It kept rising higher and higher.

And then Steve realised he was wrong.

It wasn’t rising higher.

It was getting closer.

A thick dust cloud leaped from behind the trees and blurred out the light.

The grey shadow passed through in a blink.

And then silence took over.