Our Silence

• Sienna Dobson, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2021

“My silence defines me.”

The haunting, earth-shattering last words I heard my best friend say, a perfect storm sweeping through my heart. I remember the moment, and the days before that. The words sit on my tongue, almost fighting to escape, but of course they won’t. For no sound has ever left my lips.

My parents were fearful at first. They fought my silence, trying so hard to make me talk that it pained me. But finally they realised what I had been trying to tell them all along, through my endless, senseless hurricane of signs and eyes, that my silence makes me who I am.

They called it autism. I called it me.

When I met Jamal, something touched me that I hadn’t felt before. A feeling that made me want to laugh and cry and kiss him all at once. Acceptance. Understanding. Of my silence. Because his silence defined him too.

Now, as he lies beside me on the cool September grass, dew seeping through our clothes and birdsong filling our silence like rain on a sleepless night, I feel it again. The mutual understanding that passes between us, a sweet melody. When I am with Jamal, I am calm. I am free. The endless battle to confront my silence is finally at peace.

But I remember the way things were before Jamal. The perception that there is not another soul like you. The way people thought of me, like I was an alien from a distant galaxy. The trapped, lost feeling of being misunderstood. The place I was in then was dark and hopeless. It was where I found Jamal.

I recall the way I slowly built myself back up again, repairing the wall, brick by brick, that had been knocked down by the beliefs and mindsets of the people around me. And I remember Jamal being there every step of the way, making sure I had set each piece in its correct position, and me doing the same for him.

And now here I am. With no more sound, but no less heart.

I let my hand creep over towards Jamal, slowly but surely. When our fingers brush, a spark of electricity passes between us. I start, but I don’t pull away. The feeling warms me to the core. Love needs no words, I realise.

Jamal helped me to understand that our silence doesn’t define us after all. It makes up a small part of the immense puzzle that forms who we are.

But no puzzle can be completed without every piece, no matter how insignificant it may be.