The Sound of Her Silence

The first time I saw Ayesha, she did not say a word.

It was a rainy afternoon. I had escaped to a half-occupied bookstore between two rusted shopfronts on a quiet street in Dhaka. I wasn't looking for anything particular—just peace. The doorbell rang softly as I entered, and there she was.

Wrapped up in a corner with a worn poetry book on her lap, Ayesha appeared from another time. Her eyes weren't simply reading words—she was living them. She glanced up as I passed by, smiled weakly, and went back to her book. No greeting. No conversation.

That was how it began.

I returned the next day. And the next. And the next. Each time, there she was—always reading, always quiet. I started calling it "our time," even though we never shared a word.

One day, I finally approached her and introduced myself, saying, "Hi, I'm Rafi," awkwardly offering my hand.

She looked at me, hesitated, and then gently laid her fingers on her throat and shook her head.

I didn't understand it at first. But then she pulled out a pen from her bag and scribbled on a notebook:

"I can't speak. I lost my voice in an accident three years ago."

My heart was tight. But her eyes—those beautiful, expressive eyes—were warmer than any words would ever be.

We grew, over time, like friends. We exchanged notes, read poetry, sat sometimes in silence. She left her notes with little stars or birds sketched in the margins. I left her quoted lines scribbled. We created our own language, one that was built on kindness and patience and moments that didn't need to be filled with noise.

I brought her one afternoon a music box. It was fashioned of antique wood, carved cherry blossoms crowning it. I placed it before her, wound it, and allowed the music to play.

She looked at the little dancer spin inside, tears welling in her eyes.

"I miss music,"

she wrote.

"I miss my own voice singing with it."

I sat beside her, unsure of what to say. Then I leaned over and grasped her hand in a soft touch and wrote in her notebook:

"Even if you can't sing it, you are music. You've never needed a voice to be heard."

Her eyes locked with mine, and in that silence, everything between us changed.

From that time on, we were closer. I started to learn sign language, though she smiled silently over my awkwardness. Still, I tried my best. For her.

When her birthday rolled around, I gave her a framed copy of one of her favorite quotes:

"She made broken look beautiful, and strong look invincible."

Tears flowed down her face, and for the first time, she embraced me. A long, tight, grateful hug. My heart had never hurt so full.

But life has its own stories to share.

A few weeks later, Ayesha did not turn up at the bookstore any more. I waited for hours, for days. I left word with the shopkeeper. Nothing.

Then one evening, I got a message from her sister.

"Ayesha's in the hospital. The old throat injury complicated into something else. She's extremely weak."

I rushed to the hospital. There she was, pale but smiling when she saw me. Her fingers shook as she wrote:

"I didn't want you to see me like this."

I held her hand tight. "You're still you. Always will be."

She smiled again. This time, she wrote slowly

"Thank you… for returning my voice to me, though there is none."

I tried to keep it together, but my tears betrayed me. That night, I sat beside her, grasping her hand, listening to the wailing machines, saying all the things I never told her aloud.

She had died by dawn.

But her silence never left me.

Nowadays, I visit that same bookstore on her birthday every year. I bring flowers and the old music box, wind it up, and play it softly in the same quiet corner where we used to sit.

Sometimes, I imagine she is sitting there again, smiling with her eyes, drawing stars in the margins of a notebook. And in that silence, I still hear her.

Louder than ever.