In the spirit of the drabbles, I got it down to exactly 100 words and fixed that typo! Here's version 2 and all done for now:

My Father’s Silence

There is something essential
about my father’s silence.

I have heard him recite Chaucer
from memory, his tongue curls round
whan Zephayrus eke with his swete brethe
inspired hath in every holt and heath…
The words come easy,
natural.

But
simple words,
get caught in lips pressed
suddenly together

I
me
my

cannot escape;
he has a terrible aversion
to first person.

I wonder if he would answer
if I asked in Middle English,
if I pored through his textbooks
to translate each word,
to ask in a language he speaks:

Who are you?
Speak to me.

Heh. I did wonder, there...(about pour-pore)

Oh, Kristin - that second version is so damned crisp, it's a killer. Clean, and without an excess word in there.

Beautiful.

Thanks Deb! I'm much happier with it now.

Catching up...

The last thing she remembered hearing was a crackle, a spitting, something that might have been firecrackers. They were distant, then not so distant, then closeby.

Deb, I love the opening of your drabble especially, the sense of motion.

Freshly made bed. Faintest rush of air from the ceiling vent.

Connie, this line brings me into the hospital room with you. I can smell that rush of air.

Silence is a gift to my mother, a relief from a busy day of noise and kids.

This line is great, erika. I love the idea of silence as a gift.

Okay, I think I have a narrative drabble on this topic waiting in me too.

Hmmm.

Kristin, shite. You are three for three. Sweet cuppin' cakes.

Beautiful, powerful drabbles, people. Wow.

Music Ending

There is always that moment, endless, heartbreaking, when the music is over.

Words, singing, laughter, anything that the human voice may produce - that stops, and that's fine. It leaves an echo, somehow, something that speaks in the inner ear, compact of reassurance that there will be amusement in future, and singing, shouting, voices yet to come.

In an empty theatre, when the last note of the piano hits the rafters and overhangs and settles back onto the keys like dust, the finality is the finality of absolute silence.

This is the silence of loss, and of my heart breaking.

This started as a memory of a night of stargazing in Colorado many years ago.

----------

As I switched off the ignition the sudden silence made me realize how loud the road noise had been -- the rumble of the engine, the whistle of the airflow, and the hissing of the tires.

Now I could hear the small sounds -- the pings from the cooling engine, the crunch of my shoes on the ground, the whisper of wind in the prairie grass.

As I sat and waited for nightfall, the small sounds gradually went away, leaving the personal sounds -- the creak of a knee, a shallow breath, a resting pulse.

Silence is not as quiet as you think.

----------

In the space between each breath lie eternities. Each covers vast reaches, into which she places her emotion - love, memories that she needs to keep strong, laughter and sharing and tenderness. She pours hatred at his unwilling betrayal, tears of loss, denial of the possibility of no future, and laces it all with panic.

Her lips are desperate against his, her fingers strong against his chest.

Another forever, filled with yesterday and shadows of tomorrow, makes her force back tears and inhale again.

She lowers her ear over his mouth.

More emptiness.

"Resuming compressions," she announces to an empty beach.