3 & 14!
Send me a number, and I’ll write a drabble – slow, still accepting!
@insanivit - Silence and laughter
It was never truly silent unless you locked yourself inside with all the windows shut.
Zoe could never stand it when she was younger, how quiet the house got when night settled, laying in her shared room, just waiting for something. Could hear a pin drop. Sometimes she could hear her father wandering around if he’d been drinking, her mother having long since gone to bed once his words started to slur. She could remember fighting with her brother in hushed stage whispers about the window being open at night, however. It was too noisy open, you closed it and it was too quiet, yet it was Marguerite who solved the issue with an old rickety fan. Lucas seemed to shut up after he stopped waking up in the middle of the night due to overheating. It hummed nicely and kept things comfortable, it was a win-win.
Now, the constant noise seemed to be a problem again—her uncle’s cabin seemed to let in the slightest noise, the lack of walls letting her hear every snore and mumble from the man once sleep settled in. Many a night she wished she had the gall to hurl a pillow or something at him, and the thought brought her right back to before Eveline, laying in a completely silent and way too stuffy room, her brother sleeping soundly while she lay awake listening for something outside the realm of the house setting. Wanted to throw something at him in envy over his peaceful sleep instead of waiting up for noises and paying for it come daylight.
Chatter, nails against doors, the lumbering footfalls of the monster she had been sure watched from the basement.
The thought caused a wheeze to escape her in the present, her tired and stoic face twisting up into an odd grin—a step from genuine laughter, a step from genuine crying.
Oh, how she’d wished that the monsters that plagued her memories now were the ones she made up as a kid, she had long since killed those ones as she aged. They were…they were all dead now, regardless. For a few moments, she was brought back to the comment her uncle had brought up when she had called her family monsters—that’s what they were, that’s the viewpoint that kept her from crumbling at the violence, the insects, the names and laughter. They had loved her deep down. Especially her dad. That’s what Joe had said. The comment sat heavy in her gut, a part of her hoping that was the case, while a part of her had a hard time accepting that at the same time. She knew that they had tried to fight it, her mama especially in the beginning, but all of them were too far gone in the end. The grin fell slightly, a small sigh escaping her as the sounds of the swamp and her uncle’s light snoring coming back to her as the memories became muted in her head. She still had a long way to find laughter without grief, the horror was over but in a way it still felt like it wasn’t, but maybe one day the feeling wouldn’t be as consuming.
She wasn’t alone like she thought she’d be, and this was far from over, but maybe she’d get there.
