Radio Silence

I couldn't help but think that this which just happened is exactly what one might read about in a very well written and exaggerated tale of loss and pain. This scream I had screamed so loud that I was convinced I had snapped one of my vocal cords and believed it simply must be hanging bloody and broken in the back of my now sore throat. This scream I had screamed by myself. Alone in my car while driving that long, beautiful road. I knew this road because I had driven it that day I had gone to his house to talk to him. Not that he was there. This road was serene if you drove it for any reason other than why I had taken it that day. It ran next to the big, rich farm with all its white fences. It would surprise me if the big, rich owners of the big, rich farm had not heard the soul curdling scream that ripped my vocal cord and left it dangling broken and bloody.

He was dead. Dead for just twenty-four hours. Or perhaps it had been forty-eight. Time was surreal for the length of time this had gone on so I am no more sure now than I probably was then of exactly how much time had passed. Time had little weight or mass to it anymore. It felt like air. Empty and weightless and thin. This 'time' had no definition or purpose. It had no start or end. It just simply and ambiguously.....was.

I had just left his brother. Brother's once bright blue eyes now were rimmed in black because because his death had painted dark, worn circles around those once bright blue eyes. Brother's new white complexion was dusting over the tan from two days before.... or perhaps one day before.... again with the time confusion. We talked about the last conversations we had with him. Brother told me how he had sounded okay- his usual upbeat self and how he had no idea within hours he would be gone. This was the polar opposite of what happened with me. In the midst of the conversation I last had with him, Brother had called. He had been crying during our conversation; even when he clicked over to take Brother's call. After he spoke to Brother, he clicked back to me still in tears. Now we both stood in his driveway and recalled that conversation and were amazed in a macabre way how he had been able to hold it together for Brother and cry his heart out to me; changing his demeanor so drastically and quickly within moments. Neither of us understood why or how that happened. After three hours of babbling or not babbling, thoughts and words drifting and bouncing sporadically between us - I left Brother in the driveway and started down that beautiful long road that ran alongside the big, rich farm with snow white fences.

I thought about those blue eyes now darkened. I thought about that last conversation. I thought about the sheriff at the door and the news that he had shot himself and the rain that poured like I had never seen as the news hit our ears and I thought about dancing and long talks and his ex-girlfriend and Seinfeld and work- how would I go back to that office without him? I thought about the veins in his hands when he typed and how he tormented me about the printer and I thought about all the times we sat and talked about everything and nothing and how he walked past me every afternoon and said "Giddy-up" just like Kramer ...... and that's when my soul screamed.

I screamed by myself in my car where everyone could have heard but no one did and I screamed so hard and so loud that I was sure I had snapped that vocal cord and it was now bloody and broken in the back of my throat. I screamed for a long time or perhaps just seconds but I screamed like you see in the worst horror movie ever because this was the worst horror ever. I felt the anger shooting through the scream and the raw, heart ripping pain that dripped from its octave and I screamed for all the loss and all the hurt and all that would never be again. And I screamed for him and for me and all of our friends. And I screamed.

Until the scream ended.

At the end of that scream I experienced something I never had before nor have I since.



Silence.

Total complete brain silence. I had not a thought. I had not a wave of movement in my mind. As if I were falling out into space with all engines completely stalled. And I kept falling. I know I was driving but I was in neutral in my skull so the car functioned without my ability to navigate it. The silence lasted for time that I can't recall. When the silence ended I realized my vocal cord was not broken. My heart was destroyed. But my vocal cords were somehow in tact.

No one knew about that scream and the radio silence that went on within my skull that day until now. This is the first time I ever put it to words. Perhaps it is only now I can do so without fear of rupturing another vocal cord.

This story does not unfold in order or even with any type of direction except how my mind and heart relive it. I do not recall the events of those days/weeks/hours in order within my skull. It pours off my fingers as it drains and oozes through my core. This is what its like somewhat. Not totally because I do not want to bring anyone reading this that close to the grief but this is what it is like.

Somewhat.