Silent Rule

"We would like for you to talk to her."

Talk to her?

"Perhaps you might be able to find out why she did it."

Why should I? I don’t want to know her reasons.

"The psychiatrists can’t get through to her."

That’s you problem now, not mine.

"We’ve tried everything, but she just won’t talk. You do know, she faces the death sentence?"

Of course I know.

"Will you talk to her?"

"...no."


They expect me to talk to her. What fools. I haven’t talked to her since I was six. Sure, we would exchange words, but we didn’t actually talk.

"You’re so stupid! You and your damn God!"

"Shut up!"

They always shouted. It was as though they didn’t know any other way of communicating. He would do something stupid, she would sulk, he would get exasperated, and then the yelling began. It was a tiresome cycle that started when I was six. I remember it clearly. How could I not?

I was afraid.

She hurled a mug at him. It missed its intended target, but the shards on the floor made up for it. After all, she had just wanted to throw something. Glass shards everywhere made for a bonus — he was barefoot.

I had woken up that time to screaming. It was terrifying. Like the sounds of demons from hell. It haunted my dreams for years to come. Worse yet than fear was the feeling of utter uselessness — hopelessness.

I held the broom a foot taller than me awkwardly as I swept up the shards of broken glass. It was once my favourite mug.

It was silent but for the sounds of tinkling glass. He had left sometime in the night after banging on the locked bedroom door for an hour. At the time, she had played the music so loudly, it hurt to listen. The thoughts of shame that the neighbour could hear them was mortifying.

She had stayed inside her room for three days. I didn’t see her, but I knew that she came out at night. There were dirty dishes left in the sink for me to wash.

I had just learnt to fry egg then. Cooking the rice was simple with an electric cooker.

I was sick of eating egg.

She never talked about her fight. I never asked. It was an awkward air that hung about us for several weeks before the tension died out — what I didn’t know was that it never did die out. It merely slept.

It was the same thing again ten years on. A constant cycle of screaming interspersed with the occasional calm. Sometimes it would last up to three months before the screaming started again. I learnt the hard way never to let my guard down. That was when it always struck, when things were at its peak and emotions were high. Whenever something important was coming up for me.

It was tiring. Keeping up the charade. Somewhere along the way I learnt not to ask, and she never talked about it. The tension just kept within us, like dirt swept under the carpet, slowly accumulating until there wasn’t enough carpet left to hide it all.

We had grown apart. And the never talking... it became a rule of survival. They always said let sleeping dogs lie. Perhaps it would have been better to wake the dog this time.

Another crash, another bang. I had hoped it wasn’t my mug again. I didn’t much care for the wine rack downstairs. It had played its role in catalysing some of these times in the past.

I had just gotten home from university. One would think that they might keep it down for at least a night. The irony of it all? I had majored in psychology. I was fine with the course and the intern work. The only thing I couldn’t do was to talk to my own family about the issues we left lying about the place. A psychologist with her own issues. A coward.

I took a sip of the instant tea I got from the machine. She stared out the window with blank eyes, I stared at her through the glass of the door with eyes turning dull.

They wanted me to talk to her.

It suddenly became quiet. An uncomfortable silence. There hadn’t been a slam of the main door signifying one of them departing for some down time.

Just silence.

How can they expect me to talk to her?

I cautiously turned the lock to my room door. The noise it made reverberated about the house like a crash of Thor’s mighty hammer.

I was afraid.

It was a rule. I can’t break it.

Creeping down the stairs, the familiar shadows of the house seemed imposing, throwing me back to fifteen years ago.

I hadn’t felt scared since I was ten.

I was terrified.

She never talked about it. I never asked. That was how it went. And that was how it would end.

The path to the lounge was imposing. I felt my stomach drop away and a cold numbness take over my being.

I crushed the Styrofoam cup in my hand and threw it into the nearby bin.

I heard a scream. A scream of death, like the banshees of dead stories come to life, so different a tone than what was normally associated with the name called.

He lay there in a pool of his own blood, dyed black by the shadows. The bloodied knife lay by her side. We stared as one at her stained hands.

It was over. No more screaming, no more shouting, nor more breaking things.

They came and took her away. All I did was watch. I could hear the neighbours whispering in the background, but all I could do was watch in silence as they drove away in white cars.

She never once looked at me.

I turned away from the scene before me.

She wouldn’t get the death sentence, I knew that. The defendants would plead insanity and the judge would agree. They would lock her up here and she would continue to stare at the window while I stared at her. What else could they do?

They came to remove the body, but I was left with the blood.

"We don’t do clean ups." It was a cold sentence uttered by a cold man.

I could see it in their eyes. A psychologist major who couldn’t even control her insane family. They mocked me, pitied me and scorned me.

I couldn’t talk to her. I have a feeling, I might never be able to.

I walked out of the building. She never turned to look at me, I knew that. And I didn’t look back.
In the recesses of my mind, the scream echoed within. Growing louder and louder and louder with each echo, until it became a horror-filled mantra to my soul.

"Mother!"


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I have no idea what this is about. Probably due to Sejarah tomorrow. Damn bloody subject.