“He hasn’t spoken since October,” I tell Sarah, watching steam rise from our coffee mugs. Maybe if I stare hard enough, the world will give me answers. Unlikely, but I keep trying.
Through the kitchen window, I can see Tommy sitting on the back steps, still as stone, staring into the trees. “Not a word. Not a whisper. Not even a laugh.”
Sarah wraps her hands around her mug but doesn’t drink. Her eyes follow mine to Tommy’s rigid silhouette. “Have the doctors—”
“They found nothing wrong.” The words come out sharper than I intend. I sigh and rub my face. “Sorry.” How many specialists have we seen? How many tests? “His vocal cords are perfect. His hearing’s fine. They say it’s selective mutism, trauma maybe, but…” I trail off, remembering the day it started.
Tommy had been playing at the forest’s edge, the way he always did. He loved to fly his airplane in and out of the trees. When I called him in for dinner, he turned to me with eyes too wide… too knowing. His mouth opened, then closed.
That was six weeks ago.
Sarah nods and sits back in her chair, her eyes distant.
“It’s spreading,” she whispers. “Have you noticed? The birds stopped singing last week. Even the Wilson’s dogs — they haven’t barked in days.”
My spine stiffens as I rewind through my memories from the last few weeks. I want to deny it, but the truth hangs in the air between us. She’s right. The silence is growing, morphing, creeping out across the town. Every morning, the quiet reaches a little further. Every day, another voice falls still.
“I… I wasn’t sure if I should even be here, what with Tommy and all.”
Sarah’s lips are moving, forming words I should hear, but they’re muffled, like she’s speaking underwater. I lean forward, straining. “…Mark hasn’t said anything since Tuesday. Just… stopped. Mid-sentence. During dinner.”
“What?” I’m sure I ask, but I don’t hear it.
I grasp for something real. The scratch of my pants against my skin. The roasted smell of coffee. I try to speak, to tell her I can barely hear her, but my throat constricts.
Outside, Tommy hasn’t moved. Did it get darker out? The tree shadows are longer.
“…tried to get him to write it down…” Sarah’s voice fades in and out. I try to equalize the pressure in my ears, but nothing happens. “…just shook his head…”
My ears are stuffed with cotton, with fog, with silence itself. Sarah’s mouth forms words I can’t catch, her gestures becoming more frantic. There’s a roaring in my head — no, not roaring. The opposite of roaring. A vacuum of sound, pulling, consuming.
I reach across the table and grab her hand. She stops talking, her eyes going wide as she sees whatever expression is on my face. I try to say her name, but nothing comes out. Not even a whisper.
Through the window, Tommy turns to look at us. His face is calm, accepting.
He points to the forest, and I swear — though it must be a trick of the light — the trees lean forward to listen.
Image made with Midjourney.
Prompt provided by NoGENver, GoOnWrite.
Flash Fiction written by S. J. Pajonas with assistance from Claude 3.5 Sonnet.
Listen to this via YouTube at https://youtu.be/Is7wffzQ7fo.
