THE DIALECT OF SILENCE

It was quiet. She was hesitant. Her bearing slow, with marked reluctance. Of course, the muddled path to the grotto would shed some light on her gait, but her face told quite another story. As she made her way past the dense forest, filled with elms and birches which lined either side of a poor excuse for a path, her breathing shortened. She needed some place quiet, some place for a slight repose, before she returned to the enormously frantic and raucous life she so grudgingly led. Indeed, she had just escaped from a boisterous party when she had come scurrying down her back door to the forest ahead. She never understood why she bothered about hiding these little trips from people; they hardly ever noticed her absence. Sometimes she wondered if anyone would care were she to disappear forever. Solitude being the only companion through her childhood, she doubted whether she would need anyone in her adult life. She quite liked the quietness the forest provided her. It filled her with the deep sense of tranquillity and solace that she so direly needed in her life. After what seemed like aeons to her, she arrived at the cavern she had discovered, on a similar night, when she was ten. She went in and lied down. From a minuscule hole in the ceiling she saw the stars pass the world by. Their sheer magnitude made her feel that she was the smallest being in existence. She loved it. Being invisible meant she couldn’t be seen, couldn’t be heard or even talked to. The world would be a quiet place. She was calm again and had mustered enough grit to face the deafening world again. She left the grotto and made her way back along the path. All of a sudden, a strong wind blew and the leaves ruffled. She stopped in her tracks. Realisation hit her too hard and she fell on her knees.
It would never be quiet, the trees talked.