#loud silence

Silence
Deafening silence
He can hear
But he cannot speak.
That right is no longer his
He lost the freedom to express himself
One evening last week.

Nobody knows how he feels
Nobody will know what happened
When he felt the strong tug
As the supply of blood to his brain
Was cut off, blocked
Temporarily stopped.

He heard the doctors say something about oxygen
Something about about nutrients, brain cells
Something about requiring an MRI or a PSD
Something about drugs to break down the clot
Words like aneurysms, cholesterol, constrictions.
Wait - did someone mention surgery?

Children run to his bedside,
Some worried, some not at all
Some wondering if he has a will
And if he will bequeath
Them some property
Visitors come bearing help
Food, money, moral support
Some blaming the doctors
For not doing enough,
Speaking at the top of their voices.

He lies there like a child,
A cabbage in a patch,
Unable to control his muscles
On the right side of his body.
His mouth droops slightly
But what scares him most
Is not how he looks
But the inability to speak.

He remembers that even in the worst
Of his drunken stupors,
He did not slur this much
The guttural noises that rise in his throat
Sound like they belong to someone else.
Because in the flash of second,
He lost it, when she said
That she had sold his bicycle
Because he never used it
And preferred to stagger home
Dead drunk from the bars and hovels.

He remembers that he screamed at her
She yelled back and said
All sorts of terrible things
That did not exclude death threats.

And then the birds came
Angry black birds
They came for his head
And then he saw nothing
But felt himself
Falling, falling.
Then there was silence.
Loud and empty silence. 

©LindaKibombo