The smooth voice as luscious as Belgian chocolate
stopped abruptly mid word. Heck! I think that’s what it was, which could have
gone on to be Hector or hectoring, or hack or even hic, possibly leading her to
say hiccup. But I’ll never know, because when it stopped the silence was
louder. It covered the room like a wave on the sand, a picnic rug on the grass,
a hermit crab hiding in its shell, the darkened sky that heralds a sudden
afternoon storm. The silence was
glorious and soothing and meant to help what should have come next, hours and hours of serenity but it didn’t last very
long.
At first it was soft, a snaky hiss, this was bearable
but then it progressed to a gasp, the ebbing away of a dying balloon, a
creaking door on its hinge, this too was bearable.
Then the bubbles caught on the way out and percolated
before reaching a crescendo that travelled from a low key to a high key and
erupted into a loud clap. A whip of thunder, increasing and building, a
clanging metal gate in the wind, the unstoppable drip of a neglected tap, the
incessant buzzsaw of an overactive mosquito and now, yes unbearable.
On and on it went like this, a symphony of undignified
sounds, Philip Glass on crack, Thelonious Monk using only kitchen utensils or
garden tools, a lesser known electric synthpop group that should never leave
the unfortunate band’s dad’s garage. An assault of percussion, unexpected and
at once predicted.
Louder all the time, Christ any louder and the
neighbours would add to the cacophony as they pounded the front door, the
police would be called, the roof would collapse and fall in and crush them all
to death.
But no, on it went. Dispersed with whispers and
unintelligible words, almost grunts. A farmyard orchestra. At last, a
kookaburra emerges, laughing and laughing and echoing until my ears are
physically attempting to close, to lock out this almighty din but never ever
succeeding.
People have died making these noises, loved ones have
set by their beds and witnessed this ungodly death rattle that is the soundtrack
of the soon to be departed.
Some have likened it to a rumbling ladder leading from
life to the after- life. But there is nothing glorious about this clatter. It
is hellish and cuts through the air with a thousand shards of piercing glass.
It stops, I am free, I can breathe again, I can go, I
can drift.
Racket! Blare! Holy mother of hullaballoo, it is back
with a vengeance.
Impossible to bear, impossible to live with,
impossible to continue.
I grab my pillow and press it over his face,
vibrations pulse through the fabric, punching through the plumes but I have the
strength of the will of silence.
Then, it stops. It has gone, the commotion have eased,
the tumult has subsided, the snoring has finally stopped, and my husband is
dead.
