The Silent Scream

I saw the white paper, neatly folded into an aeroplane shape, float towards me from outside the window. I looked outside as I gently caught it in my hands. It was pitch black outside, quiet as well, I could vaguely see a silhouette but it was just too dark. The unusual peaceful atmosphere gave me a very nervous feeling as if something was about to happen. I faltered before I opened the aeroplane, something inside me wanted to see what was in it but at the same time, I was afraid. Taking a deep breath, I unfolded the crisp white paper to reveal its unknown secrets.

Caroline,

I’m sorry. I really did want you to be my friend. I really did try. It’s too late now. Everything is too late. Please forgive me.

There was no name of who wrote it.

The second hand of the clock ticked rhythmically as I tried to understand the neatly written words on the paper. Pictures in my head started to flash, picture after picture, scene after scene. And then after what seemed like hours, something went off in my brain. Kathleen.

I started to run. Downstairs. Outside my house. Until I could see the heavy, menacing door in front of me. But before I could tap on the door, I heard it.  Everyone heard it.

Your right Kathleen, it is too late.

                                                                                   ******

The neighbourhood I lived in was called Still Bay. The name was so perfect because, close to the waters, nothing happened at all. Everything was the same every day, every month and every year. Everyone was really close in the neighbourhood and we all knew each other so well that it was just like a big family. The local private school I went to was pretty small with only around two hundred students, and only thirty people in my grade. My friends and I all thought that life was so boring in Still Bay, we felt as if we were living in a small puddle of still water, so still that not a single drop stirred the surface.

Then last May, a drop of water broke through the long withstanding surface and hit deep into the depth of the shallow puddle. The Lightwoods moved in. The Lightwood family only consisted of a father, Mr Lightwood and his sixteen year old daughter, Kathleen, the same age as me. Mr Lightwood was around forty years old and had a never changing cold expression on his face. If someone told you that they saw him smile, then that someone probably needed to go to see a psychiatrist, hallucination much. His daughter was no better, she not only didn’t smile but didn’t talk much as well, and if she did, you could barely hear her. That’s what everyone around the neighbourhood would have told you. No one knew anything about the Lightwoods; everyone saw them as a blank sheet of paper, no colour, no pictures. And that is how the many different stories of the Lightwoods came about, people took the joy to adding colour and streaks to the blank paper that refused to show any colour.

But I always saw it differently; I knew that from the first time I saw them step out of their sleek, shiny car, parked outside their Victorian style, two storey house just metres away from the beach. People have always said that I was a ‘sensitive’ one, whether they really meant it or were just making a sarcastic remark, this time I felt it. I knew that there had to be a story behind the Lightwoods, to them, maybe Still Bay was an asylum from something that happened to them before. However, it wasn’t until later til I knew of the story that had changed a perfect family.

Kathleen started school the week after they moved in and unsurprisingly she was in my class (since there only was one class for my grade), I wanted to find a chance to introduce myself to her but I didn’t know if she was avoiding me or if there simply wasn’t a chance but it wasn’t until later on that week till I first talked to her. I guess the people in my neighbourhood had got it right, she really was a quiet one and she obviously didn’t talk much because after a couple of conversations with her, the only thing I knew of her was that she was called Kathleen Lightwood and that she liked to play the piano.

The more she didn’t reveal anything about herself, the more it triggered my curiosity; I really wanted to know more about her. After I started to talk to her, I could feel her slowly accepting me because that afternoon, she called out my name wishing me goodbye and she smiled. Her smile was very pretty, it brought about an unusual sense of peacefulness. For the first time in years, I was beyond happy that she was now my friend. It wasn’t that I wasn’t usually happy, but in a neighbourhood like Still Bay where you could practically hear a needle drop onto the ground, there wasn’t anything to be too happy about.

Kathleen sat in the desk in front of me, next to the window. Sometimes I could see her look outside the window, her eyes layered with a vague mist. The teacher never noticed it because not many people paid attention anyway. At lunch we would sit together on the small clearing behind the maple tree in the far end of the school. I talked about my future, my dreams and everything that interested me. Kathleen quietly listened but sometimes she seemed like she lost concentration and drifted off somewhere else, I took it that I was just too boring, nothing more than that.

That afternoon, after the last period, she quickly left as usual and it wasn’t till after I slowly finished packing my bag that I saw her history book lying on the floor. There was a small assignment set for the following week so I thought I would drop it by on the way home. As I stepped on the creaky wooden stairs leading to a tall, heavy looking door with an elegant style, I heard a piano playing. The melodies were filled with melancholy and nostalgia, every note seemed to touch upon my heart, and I suddenly felt like crying. The music was so mysterious and beautiful at the same time and drew me towards the house. The door easily opened and I saw within the spacious lounge room, Kathleen was sitting on the soft bench in front of a parlor grand piano. She turned around and I saw her eyes welling up with tears. I didn’t understand how a teenager just like me could play such a sad and tear arousing piece of music.

It was a moment of awkwardness, and then I suddenly remembered the reason why I was here. I handed her the history notebook, then I asked her if she was fine. She shrugged and said that things couldn’t have been better. Kathleen invited me to her bedroom, it was quite simple with only a few items of furniture but sophisticated too with the way she arranged her room. She opened the small drawer in her bedside table and took out a small, gold locket. She handed to me and said it was a gift for her first friend at Still Bay. I was touched but also indecisive because the locket looked too fine, with intricate carvings on the front and you could tell that it was something with great sentimental value. Kathleen saw my hesitation and she slipped it into my front coat pocket.

I thought that we would be best friends forever now. But what happened the next week put me off guards completely.

If two days could make a difference, Kathleen really changed. She stopped talking to me and everyone in general, she started to daydream more in class and then two days after that, I heard that she sold her piano.

I didn’t understand why she was like this, so I asked her why. Kathleen only said, “I can’t be your friend anymore.” I was in a state of confusion that whole week. I had no idea what was wrong with Kathleen and after carefully replayed everything that happened in my brain, I suddenly felt angry. The whole time I had been the one cheering her up, trying to make conversations, making her happy, and what did I get in return. After that, I decided not to worry about this friendship problem and made myself busier with dance classes after school and music lessons on the weekend.

If I only I knew that those were the last words Kathleen would every say to me.

                                                                                 ******

The gunshot fired through the still night, awakening everyone in the neighbourhood. I was paralysed to the balcony outside the Lightwoods home. Seconds, minutes, passed. Something flashing irritated my eyes and aroused me from my trance, the police had come. Everyone came out to see what was happening, my parents found me still on the balcony and brought me away from the house. The whole time, my eyes were just fixed on the lit bedroom upstairs. I heard someone cry out Kathleen’s name, I saw Mr Lightwood come out of the house with his daughter in his hands. Her body was hanging loose and her face a stark pale white, she had a weak smile on her face with her eyes gently closed. Everyone was too shocked and gasped in disbelief at the drops of blood slowly rolling down the side of her face.

I only heard one word from one of the police officers. Suicide.

I don’t know how I got home, I don’t know how I managed to go through the weeks after. A month after Kathleen died, Mr Lightwood moved back to wherever they came from but buried his daughter in the cemetery located in the east part of Still Bay. It was only till after he left, when people talked about the Lightwoods.

Mrs Lightwood died in a car accident just before the Lightwoods moved here, she saved her daughter Kathleen and ended up dying by losing too much blood in the accident. Mr Lightwood changed completely after that and seemed to turn the blame onto his daughter. It wasn’t fair for Kathleen and this only made her think that it really was her fault. And what happened after was easy to predict. Although such a big thing happened in Still Bay, things settled down after a period of time and people kept to their normal daily lives, the Lightwoods soon became something to talk about in afternoon tea.

However the police still don’t know where the gun came from.

                                                                                 ******

A year has passed now. I am now sitting in front of Kathleen’s grave with the small gold locket in my right hand and the crisp, white aeroplane in my left. Tears start to well up in my eyes and I remember what I found yesterday on the desk Kathleen used to sit on. In tiny, neat words, on the bottom left corner of the old desk were the words. PLEASE HELP ME. It was Kathleen’s handwriting.

If there was something in the world that could reverse time, I would give up anything for it. If only there were second chances. Could I have changed anything?

If only, Kathleen, I had heard your scream. But it was too silent, just too silent for me to hear.