The Age of Silence

He had finished his breakfast, alone as usual. Some soupish sort of liquid they had every morning. He was not alone on purpose, but one had to understand that years grow on you differently, and he was glad after all, that they let him and the others have a say in the daily routine. Perhaps he would meet Mel on his way back and perhaps they would share a nod, perhaps not. It was hard to make friends in there. Most of the inhabitants kept to themselves, and some of those who would want to share some words or even a story more often than not depended on the nurses to arrange something. And then it would suddenly not be all that important.
He took the schnapps, poured it down his dry throat as he did every morning. This was the high-time of his day, surely. Sadly, they only allowed him one, and he would have loved nothing more than to have someone to share the sweet burning with; to share a toast with. It was time. Back to the one-bed, one-chair room. He had a few paintings in there as well, his daughter's paintings. She visited him once a week. That makes six days of loneliness if he was not mistaken.

Lisa wandered in with her teddy bear, crunched into her chest so no one could steal her baby. She wanted absolutely nothing; she never did, or she always forgot what it was she wanted, anyway. They did not believe in locks on doors, so it was pretty much anybody’s game, and he supposed Lisa could stand there in his doorway for a while, studying the ceiling with blank eyes, or she could walk around a bit in circles, as was her custom. It is a strange kind of carelessness that creeps in on you, once you realise how little you are able to fend for yourself. For all he knew, Lisa could in a few seconds be holding her dirty bear against his face, and end his days, with a minimal of resistance from an old man, seated with fixed hands on two narrow armrests. An old man was what he was, and nothing else. Not any of the times or places he went back to in his mind, would change what he was now. Lisa squeaked at nothing and everything, and strangled the teddy, and then she turned around and ran down the hallway.
         
He rarely talked much, none of them did. It was a rather quiet neighbourhood, but as many times as that was a good thing, as many or even more times the silence was horrifying. In a silent room, you can almost hear the slowing of your own breath.

He believed he wanted to loosen his grip from the table. He did only have the outermost joint of his fingers placed on the tablecloth, but they seemed to be stuck. He would have wanted nothing more than to place his hands slowly down on the pointy knees under the table. He felt exposed.
Mel had not seemed to notice him as he sat down, but neither had he noticed Paul nor Jay. Mel seemed to grow older every day. It was an odd observation, truly, but then again, there were very few mirrors around. Anyway, this place would make anyone age twice the normal rate. He could not see his own face in his mind. He did not know how he presented himself on the day to day basis, but what he did know was, that his hearing was bad, his vision even worse, and there were several of the dishes on the menu that he apparently could not digest properly. They loved to feed him crackers, did they not? Crackers and soup. He did not mind.
Mel made a weird sound and he gave a tiny jump, as it turned out the sound had surprised him as much as it seemed to have disgusted Jay. Mel muttered an apology, three times, one for each of the other table residents, spitting out a few words in which ‘stomach’ seemed to be the essence. Hell, they all had stomach trouble. He wanted to say it, but his exposed fingers on the tablecloth still prohibited him from uttering anything. Jay, with tightly-closed lips bulging back and forth in his face, kept looking angrily at Mel, and Mel grew smaller in his chair. What a pity. He had always cared the least for Jay. At least since the time the lip-bulger had aggressively stuck his finger down his schnapps, at one of those rare occasions when he had not eaten breakfast alone. He never knew with what intentions Jay had acted out this strange behaviour, but what he knew was, that at that breakfast he did not get his morning schnapps.
One of the nurses had seated them together at the table in good will, but now he only grew more aware of the silence between them. It is funny how making new friends does not get easier with the years, and you end up being as clueless as to what to say around new people as a high school student the first time he finds himself alone with a girl he likes. Not that the three wrinkled faces around him were new ones, but they might as well have been. In a minute or two it would all be over once again, and they would have wasted yet another rare opportunity to open their mouths at each other. The snow was the only thing keeping the darkness from excluding them from the outside world with big black walls, and so it seemed bed time was soon to arrive. A joyous time of the year for those, who live with the sun and die with it too.

It had come as no surprise that Christmas Eve came and went as loyal as any other day, and approaching was now yet another new year, same as the last one. He did not keep track on the years that had passed, and whether he was 85 or 95 did not make any difference. The years pass by and at some point you stop counting because numbers stop being important. Other things were important now, such as pills. Death was not on his mind. He was neither scared of it nor looking forward to it, it was just there, somewhere, and he did not think of it.
Loretta knocked on the door and stuck her face in saying hello and asked if he was ready. Ready as ready can be, he thought, and then he said it. She grabbed him around his waist and helped him up, and his firm grip slowly let loose from the armrests, like sticking plaster being pulled neatly off skin. He was put in a wheelchair and rolled out in the hallway. It was a one minute roll through the hall, and they would end this small trip in the dining room where a fake New Year’s dinner had been arranged, so that everyone, even those leaving for a celebration of the last day of the year, could participate.
Jay was not there, luckily, he thought. Even though the idea of being old and disabled and alone was no one’s cup of tea, why make matters worse, when you cannot change these facts. And that angry frown of Jay’s surely did make matters worse for those around him. Mel and Paul were there, and the three of them had exchanged a few short nods, when they were seated at the table. After the celebratory dish of soup had been served another man was seated by the table in his wheelchair by a nurse who smiled at all of them. This is Tom, she said, and we should all enjoy our evening. None of them had seen Tom before, it seemed, although he might have been a resident for so and so long. There were a lot of residents that were not easily spotted in the hallways or dining rooms. The four of them ate in a pure silence that was only disturbed by those stomach sounds of Mel’s. When they had finished eating, a tray was placed on the table with four schnapps; a joy, surely. None of them touched their glasses at first, as if evaluating how to tackle this wonderful substance. He felt his fingertips shivering, but in a good way; in an expectant way. He moved his right hand across the surface of the table to grab a hold on the small glass, as did the others. They lifted their glasses simultaneously as by demand, but then Tom cleared his throat rather loudly; an action which surprised the three others, and made them all face the new guy. Cheers! He said. As simple as that. A contemplation suddenly hovered around the table, but quickly an agreement followed, and they all poured the burning liquid down their throats and dashed the glass back on to the table surface in four synchronous smooth movements that would have amazed just about anyone. Aaah, Tom moaned, and Paul nodded at the new guy while his smile widened. Paul looked around the table, still nodding and smiling, and suddenly they were all giggling in the quietest possible way, while their vocal organs slowly grew accustomed to this new behavior and then their ring of staccato panting got louder and louder until a nurse had to run to the table to see if something was wrong. Another one! Tom articulated with a gesture as if he was to embrace the whole room. The nurse stopped for a moment, but apparently the wrinkled smiles around the table were infectious, and so she smiled and winked and then she walked away, only to return with four more schnapps, placing them around the table, saying: Just this once. What a wonderful evening. Laughter is the true liberation in a world of silence. Tom was great company, he liked to talk when he first got started, and Mel groaned that the liquid was helping his troublesome stomach, and surely they would have another one to enjoy this wonderful evening. The other dinner attendants around them were followed back to their rooms as the evening went on, and not long after the desert had been finished, theirs were the only table left. At that specific table four old men were writing history. And so the evening went on and the evening ended, as all evenings must do, but in the following morning four residents got out of bed more smoothly than ever; each of them with a lost smile upon their faces and a will to rise from the age of silence.