No Talking

No Talking

"It is all over the day we hear each others voices"

Andy read the text message again in the window of his mobile phone.

He typed; "What do you mean? Who is this?", pressed Send.

It was a long moment to wait but Andy is a patient guy and chilled about stuff like this.

The phone pinged.

"When our eyes met in the bar, we both knew. I got your number. Meet me?"

He knew at once this was Amy, a cute girl he had seen and asked around about, had learned her name. She had slipped through his fingers and it had left him feeling down, but hopeful they might cross paths again.

"Where do you want to meet?"

"23c rue strasse. No voices. It ends when we hear each other talk. This is the rule."

For many months the people at 23a and 23b rue strasse were amazed to hear about their flatmates antics. The relationship was going amazingly well, surprisingly. Aside from intense intimate contact, sharing so much of themselves, observing so much about each other, they hardly made any noise together other than an occasional ecstatic gasp. The peace around them and the passion between them was profound.

The problem started when Andy, in his early days of figuring Amy out, wondered if this was some type of college experiment she was doing and was inspired to use the unusual quality of the relationship as thesis for his sociology coursework. Alone at his own place he kept audio notes in his mobile phone recorder, during which he discussed not only Amy and his feelings about her, what it was like being in a relationship with a no speaking rule; how they connected so deeply in ways and about things we do not even have words for. He also discussed it in relation to other aspects of sociology. Andy frequently scored the highest grades in his class.

The problem was not of Andys doing. It was not his fault that the envy of another student resulted in the theft of Andys mobile phone and the release of the entire semester of private recordings into the public domain over the internet. Neither was it Andy's fault that the work was so brilliant it went viral and within a week the media had picked upon it and were stalking him for interview.

Musicians were mixing samples of his voice into their music. Girls were making video blogs about how sexy his husky accent was. The television was playing excerpts on the news channels; panels of professional experts were discussing Andys theories and quoting him on eveningtime psychology programs. Later, his research was written - accredited - into the academic syllabus. He was offered jobs teaching all over the country.

Amy could not leave her room without hearing Andy's voice. It was driving her crazy. The one person she needed to see, to be with in their comfortable, secure, stability of a silent bubble, was the very person she had forbidden from ever seeing her again. They were both devastated. They did both eventually get over it.


Copyright 2014 snakeappletree