As soon as i take the AirPods out of my ears there is a noise. A deafening noise which sucks me in and throws me back into a weird place. I land hard. I crash, and then I try to get back on my feet. I know this place. The walls and the colors. The trees and the street lamp. And that endless, relentless noise screaming inside my ears. The noise is silence and the weird place is reality. I have been here too often. But it is never a warm welcome here. It is cold. And it is ruthless. I look around. There is no one. A person walks past in front of me. Then there is nobody again.
I start walking and I see a car waiting outside a dimly lit store. I keep walking. A woman inside is on the wheel. A man comes out of the store with a bag in his hand. He has picked up a bottle of wine. He gets inside the car, they kiss. The woman starts driving and they drive away into the deep night. The store closes and the man in the store walks into the direction opposite to me. The sound of the locking of the store and the car whizzing past me fade into the night sky. The noise comes back. It is cold. I put my hands in my pocket and keep walking. Everybody is home. Everybody is warm. I keep walking.
On the other side of the road I see a woman. She is walking in the opposite direction. Our eyes meet. Her eyes are searching for something. I can tell. They are brown. They shine under the dim moonlight. But they are afraid too. They shine but not too much as if too much is not right. Just enough to let me know that the light exists. She looks at me and stops. I stop. I am scared. Scared of her crossing the road and walking towards me. She does just that.
She is facing me now. Her hands are long and slender. Her face is long and she has perfect teeth. She is warm.
“What are you looking for?”, she says.
“I do not know the answer to that question”, and I ask, “”why did you cross the road?”.
She responds, “I do not know either”.
I wanted to ask her can she hear it too? The screams out of the deep and hollow silence of the night? Is she cold too?
She breaks the silence and says, ” I better be leaving, I am late”.
A friend is waiting for her. A dinner, she said.
She starts walking away. Smiles at me and waves goodbye. The smile is very bright. Out of nowhere it leaves me blinded for a second. I bring my hands in front of my eyes as I squeeze them shut. Once that is over I open my eyes to see her walk. Her back towards me and her long brown hair bouncing softly with every step she took. The warmth of her presence is slowly fading away. I can feel the air become more dense and lifeless with every breath I take. She disappears into the darkness. It is cold, again. I keep walking.
I put my AirPods back on and blast music into my ears. One less door open for when the pain tries to enter.