The Invisible Invincible Ones MAIA GAPUD
How did it feel? Well, it was the strangest thing. One day, I woke up, and the world was suddenly in black and white. It was like going through the looking glass, and on the other side, the world was toned down, calm, muffled. Yes, that’s why they call it the Silence. It insulated me from the outside world. Though I was bombarded with images on my TV screen, it all felt so far away. I watched the news and saw people lining up outside hospitals; The doctors armored from head to toe in their PPE; Politicians raging and rambling on and on for hours; People stranded, jailed, sleeping on cardboard waiting for a way to get back home. I heard their cries and the desperation in their voices. Every single moment to them was a matter of life or death. But I was untouched and watching from a distance, on safer shores. My own little island, where the tides were perpetually stilled.
Oh, I’ve been out of my apartment, of course—to the grocery store and nearby talipapa. But each time I stepped out onto the gray pavement, I felt it. Everyone in masks, heads down to check their phones. “No one can ever touch you, nor you them,” the Silence seemed
to say to me. As long as I didn’t interfere with the outside world, it would leave me be. Sometimes, I thought I was hearing ghosts. Shadowy voices calling out to me, begging me to step back into their side. “You have to see this,” or “Don’t you remember?” or “Please know that I love you.” But they always left me alone eventually. Dreams are more vivid than real life, if I’m being honest. I once had a dream that the woman I loved was dying. In the dream, I could feel the full weight of myself sitting beside her bed—ashamed of how much space I was taking up—could smell the sweat and taste the salty beads of tears rolling down my face. I grasped her cold, bony hands in mine firmly, desperate to keep them warm, but I could feel her escaping me. I squeezed harder, feeling her flesh and sinews in each finger. The sound of her faltering breaths swelled in the air like the last notes of a melancholic ballad, the type of song that starts out sweet and sultry and euphoric, but whose echoes could haunt you forever. A dull beep replaced the sound, droning on... When I jolted awake, I couldn’t even remember her face or name. The Silence washed over me, prodding me to go back to sleep.
ALPAS Issue 5
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