Silence

“Shit, its cold.” The whispered words formed perfect puffs in the frigid air. Stamping his feet and pulling his coat tighter, the owner of the expletive attempted to warm his extremities. Three hours. Three hours he had stood in the cold by this door. Waiting on the arrival. Waiting on his chance, his opportunity, his big break. But nothing yet. Just the silent night creeping around him, sealing the cold even closer to his body. There had been no sounds at all. Even the noises from the streets 20 floors below could not be heard from the roof of this building. Strange. It was the first time since his sojourn to the city that he had heard the silence of a moonlit night.

He remembered lying awake at night when he was younger. He never had been able to fall asleep like a normal child. He would lie there until four or five in the morning, waiting for his eyelids to grow heavy, listening to the darkness. Even the cicadas, the frogs, the owls, would grow quiet at these times. It was only in this complete and total silence that he could finally find slumber. The first bird of the morning, greeting the sun, would raise him from his bed. He always awoke before his family. But he would stay in his room, pretending to sleep, until he heard his mother pad down the hall into the kitchen to start breakfast.