The Story of Silence (Book 3)

Chapter 7

Silence returned to his work, he was almost done with the sums, another few minutes and he would be complete. He checked his watch, and then off to lunch, he thought happily, providing the lady doesn't insist on seeing me. The bell dinged a few minutes later and he clicked play.

'You're saved, Silence. She said that she supposed she could see someone else. She sounded disappointed though, but I told her that you were really busy and that maybe next time you'd see her. That cheered her up.' The message ended.

Silence sighed. He hated it when that happened. He would have to ask them about that. Who cares if the ladies get disappointed when they are told I can't see them, there are about a thousand employees being paid to talk to people like her! Why do they have to pick me! He thought angrily as a he replied, 'Thanks very much!' and then returned back to work, hopefully without any more interruptions.

Five minutes later Silence was done. He rose from his seat, stretched, collected his coat and left his office for lunch. He had an hour.

Though there was a perfectly good cafeteria downstairs for employees, Silence preferred to go out for lunch. There was a burger place just down the road that he knew of, and he had come to know the guys working there quite well.

He entered one of the lifts and pressed G. Within a minute he was on his way towards the front door of the building.

Had the map of the route not been memorised perfectly in his mind, and he had been paying attention to the people around him, he would have missed walking into the woman standing in the middle of the floor looking around. They collided into each other and both fell to the floor in a heap, Silence ending up on top. He froze, numb in shock at what he'd done, and then quickly pulled himself to his feet and helped the lady to hers. He gave her a quick once over to see if she was hurt, which she didn't seem to be, and noticed she looked to be the same age as he was.

'Silence!' the girl cried in surprise when she saw who had collided into her as he helped her to her feet.

Silence didn't seem to notice that she knew his name as he had pulled out his pad and a pencil and was writing her a note apologising.

She continued to smile in pleasant surprise at him, not seeming to care that he had just run into her.

'Hello, Silence,' she repeated as he finally finished his note, explaining in the beginning of it why he wasn't talking, and handed it to her.

It was only after he had reached out the note for her to take did he realise she knew his name. He frowned and turned the note over and wrote: Do I know you?

She took the note the second time he handed it to her and nodded after reading it.

'Firstly, I am fine. No need to apologise, Silence, I too should have been watching where I was going. Second, you don't remember me?' she sounded disappointed as she asked him.

Silence shook his head slowly, still puzzled by who she was.

He wrote her another note asking who she was and how she knew his name.

'I've known you for ages! Well, sort of, we never really met. Well we did, but it wasn't for long. I would say the last time we saw each other would have been about five years ago. We didn't talk for long, if I remember correctly you didn't talk at all and I ended the conversation by running out on you in tears. I am sorry about that; I had a panic attack, a delayed sort of shock. Ring any bells?'

Silence looked her over again; she did look to be his age, and was shorter than him by about a couple of inches. She too had black hair, or just very dark brown, and her eyes were pale blue. There was a faint memory of her in his head, a younger her, but he shook his head again anyway.