The Smiths

• Tohunga Riwai, Grade 9, Southern Cross District High School
• Short Story
• 2014

Excellence Award in the 'Write As Rain 2014' competition

The Smiths

Silence was present in the lounge room of the Smith family household. Not an awkward silence, but more of a kind of silence that revolved around the fact that the two siblings present in the room were ignorant of each other.

Jane Smith shattered the mute atmosphere when she began to sip gingerly from the can of V energy drink to her right. Her eyes, blank and empty of thought.
slurp…slurp…slurp…
John passively ignored the quiet intrusion to the semi comfortable silence, and continued to tap lightly on the Xbox control pad. He seemingly ignored the slight intrusion, and went on to play the muted video game blissfully, his expression changing slightly every time he tapped a different button.

Jane imitated her brother by doing almost exactly the same action with her cell phone, most likely chattering with her friends about pointless shards of irrelevant gossip. A smile began to form as she read through some sort of text on the screen of her iPhone.

The near melancholic atmosphere was maintained by the siblings’ knowledge of a terrible incident that had occurred to a loved one of theirs.

It wasn’t until the shrill ringing of Jane’s cell phone had screamed out in between their numerous, mute activities, that the sound barrier of the room was fully broken. Hesitantly, Jane rose the small device to her right ear. “Hello?” Her gentle voice echoed like a sudden movement in a frozen forest

John coughed quietly, using his pale right hand to scratch his sandy, brown hair. Worry was beginning to spawn on his face, and the previous air of comfortable silence was now gone.

“Y-Yes, I’m aware of that,” she spoke formally, a pained glint in her eyes was followed by the biting of her bottom lip. The news wasn’t good.

John had a feeling he knew what the call was about.
After a few more moments had passed, Jane ended the call. An expression of pure shock and disbelief, made itself present on her face.

It wasn’t until Jane turned to her brother that he’d noticed the shocked expression on her face. He could sense the turbulence of her emotions, and the pure shock and sadness that radiated from her entire being. Jane’s emerald eyes, gleamed and overflowed with tears.

“M-Mum, sh-she’s…”

Without hesitation, John pulled his grieving sister into his embrace, tears streaming down her cheeks and soaking the teal shirt he wore.
“Shhhh,” he consoled, salty streams of water beginning to form in his usually hard, brown eyes. Jane buried her damp, tan face into her brother’s chest, trying to snub out the pain and misery in her heart.
John shut his eyes tightly, wishing and wishing that it was only a dream…

Alas, it was not.

The sad fact of it all, was that now, the two siblings were truly alone.