Silence.

Quiet.

All is Quiet. All is White Noise. All is bright spots in my vision. The pain. The flash. Someone else's teeth, rough and jagged, tearing into my lip, leaving flaps of bleeding skin where my mouth should be. The teeth tear into them some more. This is White Noise, because if these sounds had a color it would be white. Blank and featureless. Heartless and blinding. And above all, a softly buzzing, slowly strangling nothingness that rammed my breath back down into my lungs, pushing farther until they strained against the rest of my organs, slowly rupturing.

Nothing. A fist down my throat.

A flip of the hair, a baring of teeth in amusement. Pink lipstick. The faint wisp of body sweat. Crowded hallways, faces that are only recognized one way. One step more. Just. One. More. Step. Trying to breathe through torn lips, rasping, while everything else is Quiet. So, so Quiet. The wheel on the wall ticks. I decide it is my new God. Nothing else matters and everything seems so flat and petty.

The wheel ticks on. It laps around, over and over. I breathe through scabs, and then through pale caterpillars that eventually get their color back. I realize that the world did not stop to pause and to muse over the tiny little figure that is me. People moved around and animals died somewhere in Africa and my body healed itself, a deep betrayal.

I stop and look at myself in the mirror. There is nothing but a sheet of rough hair that shivers when I move my head. I push it back, bare my teeth like some feral thing. The sight of those jagged spikes has those pink caterpillars draping back over them, wilting. Later I found that something had torn into them again, and they are back to lifeless bleeding crags. The White Noise returns, and this time it blinds me and the Quietness fills me with hatred.

Quiet. It is too, too Quiet.

The fist is starving me of air.

I am blind and deaf from the White Noise.

I will soon suffocate.

All I see is white. I stumble and I cannot take one more step anymore and no one will help me up. I cannot feel my mouth anymore, and it is a bloody mess. The fist is jerking up and down my throat, grabbing at anything and tearing it out to be left on the grass. It cups everything in my stomach and flings it. My ears are buzzing with It. The White Noise is peaking. Fear clogs my pores, because I do not know what will happen after It has peaked.

But something changes. I breathe. Air whistles between my gnawing teeth.

And I Speak.

The White Noise pauses and looks down onto the little creature that is me.

And instead of Quiet, there is Silence.

A heavy, deep and pounding Silence that beats against the walls and crushes everyone's chest beneath its cleats. It tickles feet and dabs sweat on palms and makes people look at the spot behind me. It is no longer Quiet, but Silent. All is Silent. It seems to like to stomp on me the most. There is no balm for Silence. Quiet shifts on its feet and scolds me, who Spoke up. But Quiet no longer exists because it is now Silence. All is Silence. Silence has yanked me, clawing, and tossed me in front of everyone's path and made them look at me, to stop ignoring the signs. I cannot go back. I have been branded strange. And now people avoid me.

Just because I Spoke.

The White Noise is a roaring monster, as loud as ever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's Note.

I wrote this short piece in frustration in response to the way people react when someone confesses their struggle with depression. You suppress a person with depression by ignoring and choosing to be ignorant of the signs, and keeping Silent and avoiding them once they Speak up is the worst death bed you can give him or her. If you know someone, like I do, or are struggling yourself, do not keep Quiet about it. Tell someone you know that will not turn away from you or be that person yourself. Do not carry this burden or let someone carry it alone. When it is time to Speak up, make sure that someone is there to Listen.