Shipwreck

She came, every other night except Sunday, and stood in the darkness. The glass wall of soundlessness stretched across the field, expecting nothing and least of all to shatter. No one to watch, no one to care, no one to crush hopes and no one to cause pain. Nothing to hinder her; even the silence would soon give way to stronger forces.

The school was a building of many emotions and shared memories, but even as she laughed, she was separated from that strange sort of unity that she never seemed to be able to achieve. Voices were just a staircase to a second landing, and then a third, and a fourth, all the way to the floor of graduation when you could finally leave. Relationships were handrails, something to keep you steady, something to look forward to. Once you were at the top of the steps, what need was there for something to keep you up? It was almost a disappointment, to realize it was all just an elaborate learning experience.

It all cleared out by three in the morning, however. The angry whirlpool they called a student body was vanished, and all was empty and warehouse-esque again. The football stadium gave the greatest sense of openness, cold and quiet, and so very, very desolate.

And there she was, every other night except Sunday, a still silhouette, on the roof of the stadium. It didn't really matter how she managed to get up there, or how she managed to enter the school without setting off the alarms. It was important only that she did it, and that regardless of being caught, she was never turned in.

She wore only a light jacket, though the temperature was far below twenty degrees. There was no snow, for snow rarely fell until well into February. Her arms were stiff by her sides, her eyes toward the end of the field. The pressure of the noiselessness seemed as though it would knock her off her feet, down to an abandoned death on the eternally frozen ground.

And then it was shattered.

Her voice spread out over every surface and through every current of the air, almost murderous in its strength. Everything seemed to awake and tremble with an inconceivable sort of life, as if it were breathing for the first time since the last time she sang. Her almost unearthly strain shared a thousand stories with every note, begging to be heard and understood. The words didn't matter, even if she were singing words, they would be lost against the flow of the song. She was alive.

It went on for perhaps not even a minute, and then all was quiet once more. It seemed though that even the silence was adrenalized and would be until her feet carried her away again to an idea of sleep and a hope of a dream, where her deformed view of the world could be released and explored.

Down on the ground stood a shocked young person, but even he was inconsequential at this moment. The revelation he had experienced was only a very small step, and he would never say anything to her or make any indication that he had shared in this release of emotion. He would go home and he would sleep and when he awoke, he would convince himself it was all a dream, and when he saw her in the halls, he would duck his head, ashamed of dreaming of such a strange girl.

She was used to it. The bruises up and down her arms from ignorant antagonists, the broken bones that had been passed off as an unlucky accident, the tear-swollen eyes when she left that everyday-prison's walls -- she was used to it all.

And still she came, every other night except Sunday, and stood in the darkness. The glass wall of soundlessness stretched across the field, expecting nothing and least of all to shatter. No one to watch, no one to care, no one to crush hopes and no one to cause pain. Nothing to hinder her; even the silence would soon give way to stronger forces.