Pause Button

Writer: Maram Mohammed

Artist: Shams Mohammed

Editor: Ahmed Ashry

Everything has gone silent; I don’t know how I should feel about that. My mind, which had built a habit of never allowing me to sleep at night, has gone silent the second I opened my eyes today. And I thought that this is what I have wanted all along – the silence. However, I don’t understand how I feel right now. The silence isn’t comforting, it is rather deafening. 

My music is on blast in the background, and I am trying to seek solace in the noise. I try to focus all my energy on absorbing the lone lyrics of each song, as their beats break the sound barriers between my room and the room beside me, but I find it so hard to make sense of anything. My thoughts are adamant to take full control, and I am forced to only hear the silent rhythms my brain keeps playing over and over. I am oddly calm– quiet. Nevertheless, it is not the type of quiet you think you would enjoy. It is the type of quiet that takes your soul, steps over it a couple of times and then proceeds to push it off the highest cliff in town. It is the type of quiet that you want to break free from, the type of quiet where you can’t physically use your voice. It is the haunting type of quiet. It is the quiet that you fear. 

I guess my pause button does work, after all.