B is for Breath

He thought if he held his breath that the silence wouldn't notice him. He writhed with the agony of holding his breath and then with a sigh of despair let it out slowly, slowly, hoping... The silence was broken only by the soft rustle of the wind through the autumn leaves. All else was gone. Nothing resonated, nothing murmured. Only the silence prevailed over the meadow. It was a silence that sent shivers down his spine and sat in the pit of his stomach.

It wasn't like this a couple hours before; then he could hear the birds squawking in the trees, the horses whinnying in the field, a plane circling overhead and his mother calling him in for supper. Somehow that all disappeared before he came back outside, after he finished his supper. The birds trilled no more as if silenced by the dusk. The horses just disappeared, no sound of hoof-beats or snuffling across the meadow. The plane had long gone leaving only a small smoke trail to mark its path. A silence that was almost physical took their places and sat waiting...He could feel it's weight as he stepped down from the doorway onto the deck. He glanced behind him to reassure himself that he still had a home to return to and that he had just gone through the same door that he had entered earlier. The red door seemed like it was the only thing left as a constant.