In a World Full of Silence, He Chose to Be a Song

In a world of silence,

where all lived,

silently sliding to and fro

like ice skaters across the smooth

glassy surface of an icy lake,

trapped in the deafening nothingness

of silence,

he chose to be a song.

Not a proud anthem,

or the powerful bellows of the opera,

but like a whisper,

soft and faint,

barely passing his lips

and carried along by the wind.

It was simple and plain,

a refrain of some old song,

long forgotten by the people of silence.

So faint, that he thought perhaps

that the rest would not hear it.

But, with their ears attuned to the silence,

the melody rung out like a knife scraping

along a wrought- iron fence,

screeching, shattering the darkness

and quiet they had all conformed to.

The world jeered at the boy of song,

mocking his tune

and though their words stung,

he grew bolder

and his song grew louder

until it swelled into a symphony that shattered

his battered world.