Unfinished.

We plopped down on the couch behind the wood stained coffee table. I landed in the crack between the cushions and sunk lower but at least my feet could still reach the table. We sat mirroring each other, our legs crossing at the ankles. The living room was spotless. I stared straight ahead into the 14 inch screen TV and looked at our warped reflection.
"When I get old I think I'm just going to sit in the silence a lot. And when I say old, I mean always."
He meant for it to be funny but I didn't even laugh. I just became aware of the silence and felt it. It was so quiet. Painfully. I strained my ears to hear any sound at all, but I couldn't. It was like when you sit in a basement and darkness wraps around your eyes and you open them as wide as you can while you hold your hand in front of your face, but you can only see darkness. Eventually you can't even tell if your eyes are open anymore. I couldn't even hear myself breathing, only the silence. It was thick like molasses and poured into my ears. My thoughts seemed to scream in contrast to the vastly empty room. The room stretched for miles and my thoughts kept getting louder while my ears were being filled. I could feel the silence laying heavily on top of me.
"I get panicky when I sit in silence for too long." I spat the words out fast. I wanted words. I wanted noise to fill the room. My voice didn't even bounce off the wall in front of me. But it seemed so far away. The words fell breathlessly out my mouth and instantly sank into the carpet.
He turned his head lazily to face me, "Are you panicky now?"
I just stared into his sad eyes. My face felt so still. I wondered if my eyes looked sad.
"No," I lied.
He turned away. More silence. I could feel my stomach uncomfortably shifting beneath my skin. It seemed to boil and simmer in intervals.
"I don't think I ever saw my parents hug."
"Hug?" My ears were so full of silence, I couldn't hear his words.
"Yeah. Their whole marriage, I never saw them hug."
There was a long pause. Or what seemed long. It might have only been a few seconds but I didn't know what to say. It wasn't an uncomfortable pause. In fact, I doubt that he wanted me to say anything at all. Our chests rose and fell like a wave. Mine would rise just as his was falling and they would work together like that until we were the ocean in the middle of the living room.
"That's no good," was the best thing I could come up with. Because that's exactly what I thought. I looked over at him but his eyes were glazed over. He couldn't see me. I don't know if he could see anything. I watched him for a moment. The corners of his mouth pointed slightly downward and his eyes seemed to match. I wondered what he was thinking. Then i wondered if he was wondering what I was thinking and that if he was, we would almost be thinking the exact same thing and then maybe our chest movements would match. But I don't think he was. He was lost. My thoughts were yelling from the inside, banging against my forehead. Thoughts I didn't want to think. Thoughts that only come when silence fills my ears and time seems to stop. In a bad way. My stomach boiled again and I could feel my brow scrunch slightly into a worry. I could still hear nothing but the screaming behind my cranium.
He broke the silence and for a moment, my worry. "Do you ever just sit for a while and suddenly your arms stop feeling like arms and they start feeling like weights?"
The words fell out of his mouth and onto my arms. They detached at the shoulders and fell to my side. I started to doubt that I would ever to be able to move them again. They weren't my arms anymore. My face worried more and my stomach flopped.
"Yeah," was all I could say. His words were making my arms heavy. And my words weren't making enough noise to penetrate the thick layer of silence.
"That's usually right before I fall asleep." Neither were his.
Mindlessly I said, "And then you start to doubt that you'll ever be able to move them again..." My mind wouldn't allow me to hear his words. I couldn't even hear mine. I just spoke.
"I think I'm about to fall asleep."
I didn't say anything. My mouth joined my arms in the detachment from my body. My stomach tried to join but just felt hot instead.
I thought of my legs. They looked so big. I thought of how much work would be needed to change my body. I thought of all the bad things I have done and how I'm not sure if they will ever leave. I thought of my family. I thought of all the people in my life. My thoughts were so fast and so loud. I could see the whole room all at once. My eyes took all of it, yet none of it in. I could see so much, but still couldn't see anything at all. My thoughts didn't make any sense anymore. I looked over at the still life next to me. He breathed slowly while my breath quickened. I wondered if he could hear my short quick breaths and feel my heart pounding like I could. I didn't know why the silence would make me so worried. Boiling my stomach.
"I have to write a paper," I said out of panic disguised as sudden realization.
He slowly rotated his head my way and blinked a long blink. His lips didn't move. I doubted his existence.
"It's due tomorrow. Gosh I don't know why I always procrastinate things." I started to move off the couch. I wanted to scrape the silence from my ears. I stood up and adjusted my pants and pulled my shirt down over the top of my jeans. I wiggled my feet into the sandles I wore over to the house and started hurriedly picking up all of my things off the coffee table. Keys - pocket. Chapstick - pocket. Cell phone - I'll hold this. I looked around the room and noticed he was starting to get to his feet. The movement in the room felt like sound but the panic wasn't fading. It was rising. I needed to breathe.
"Yeah I guess you better go write your paper," he said as he put his hands on his knees to steady himself while he stood up.
I smiled and turned toward the door. He took two steps with his long legs and made it to the door before me and open it. He took his hand off the nob and put his arms out indicating that he wanted a hug. I stole a nervous glance out of the door and into the stair well but moved in for the hug. It was brief.
"Bye, " I puttered.
"Good luck on your paper."
"Thanks." He closed the door and I moved toward the stairs. I paused on the first step to breathe. I could hear cars grumbling down the street and chatter from the parking lot. Cool air filled my lungs and my ears were liberated with the harassment of sound. The faint remembrance of panic throbbed in my ears but I breathed through it. I took my mind somewhere else. I took it to an Andrew Bird song I had stuck in my head. I let each step down the stairs be my beat. I walked through my door and headed for my room where I instantly turned on my iTunes. Not to anything specific. Just noise. Words and music that would drown out my own thoughts. I lay on my bed and let the images of the songs dance through my head. I lived another life and closed my eyes. Sleep swallowed me whole and I was complete.