Empowerment. Engagement. Authenticity.
Sounds of Silence - The Message
What do you say to the best
friend of an ex-friend while shoulder to shoulder in a stuffy elevator?
Had there been thought bubbles above our heads, they would have been as
blank as our expressions. The dull clunk of the elevator door nudged us
forward into a foyer ripe with stale food smells and unvacuumed dander.
No music. No babies crying. No
rattle of pots and pans.
We knocked on Andrea’s apartment
door.
No answer.
We knocked again, neither of us
willing to be the first to speak, to cross the threshold from hope to
uncertainty.
Rachel’s message had come on a
July day when humidity hung thick as syrup in the air. The whir of the
ceiling fan in my bedroom was serving more as a lullaby than a breeze. I
was blasting Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz to psych myself up for
tutoring a new student.
At first, the message had made
no sense to my dulled mind. Check on Andrea who I
hadn’t said more than a few sentences to in the past three years?
Sure, but Rachel better come with me. I had a key to Andrea’s apartment,
but that was in case I had to feed her cats and I hadn’t done that in
ages. Using the key now seemed presumptuous, especially if she just
wasn’t answering her phone because she was in bed with the stomach bug.
Rachel knocked a third time. The
air swallowed the sound and our ears strained.
No yell to get lost. No feet on
carpet. No deadbolt sliding open.
“Andrea?” Rachel called, her
voice a dry crackle in the still air. “Use your key,” she told me. “She
probably can’t hear us through the door.”
I used my key and the door
opened, catching on the security chain. I jumped as I felt something
furry nudge my ankle. The ornery Scooter and reclusive Missy meowed up
at me. We called to Andrea again. Only the soft ticking of a clock
answered.
“Maybe she’s not home,” Rachel
murmured, but fear was seeping through.
I knew the chain wouldn’t
be engaged if Andrea were away.
Rachel dialed 911 and was
directed to non-emergency. A hundred questions later – a thirty-five
year old could have any number of reasons for ignoring visitors -
officers cut the chain.
No sirens. No order for CPR. No
words in the elevator.
(c) Kristy Kassie, 2016
Read feedback on The Message.
Sounds of Silence
