THE DIARY OF SILENCE. FLASHBACK-BEFORE THE SILENCE
729 Words
Chapter 2
The Diary of Silence
Flashback — Before the Silence
Before she learned to walk quietly…
Amara used to run.
Her father would pretend not to see her hiding behind the mango tree in their small yard.
“I wonder,” he would say dramatically, shading his eyes, “where my little hurricane has gone.”
Amara would burst out laughing and leap from behind the tree.
“I’m not a hurricane!”
“Oh?” he would scoop her up easily. “You destroy everything in your path — especially my peace.”
Her mother would watch from the doorway, arms folded, smiling in that soft way that meant she was storing the moment inside her heart.
Their house wasn’t big.
But it was alive.
Alive with music in the evenings when her father played old records while cooking. Alive with the smell of onions frying and tomatoes simmering. Alive with the sound of her mother humming as she braided Amara’s hair before school.
Every morning, her mother parted her hair carefully.
“Stand still,” she would say gently.
“I am standing still!”
“You are vibrating.”
Her mother would laugh — a warm, low laugh that felt like home.
“Big girls stand steady.”
Amara would straighten proudly.
She believed she was safe.
She believed all fathers came home every evening.
She believed all mothers kissed foreheads before bed.
She believed the world made sense.
Sundays
Sundays were sacred.
Her father would wake her early and carry her outside just as the sun began to rise.
“Look,” he’d whisper.
At first she didn’t understand what she was looking at.
“It’s just light.”
“It’s not just light,” he would reply. “It’s proof that darkness never wins forever.”
She would sit on his lap on the front steps, wrapped in his oversized sweater, watching the sky turn from deep blue to gold.
Her mother would eventually step outside with tea.
“You’re filling her head with philosophy again,” she would tease.
“Better than filling it with fear,” he’d answer.
Amara didn’t know then how precious those mornings were.
She only knew she felt important.
Chosen.
Loved loudly.
The Promise
One night, after she had fallen and scraped her knee badly, she cried harder from shock than pain.
Her father carried her inside and cleaned the wound gently.
“It hurts,” she sniffled.
“I know.”
“Will it always hurt?”
He looked at her carefully.
“No. Pain changes. It doesn’t always stay sharp.”
Her mother knelt beside them.
“And when it does hurt,” she added softly, “you tell someone who loves you.”
Amara nodded solemnly.
Her father kissed the top of her head.
“You will never be alone in this world,” he promised.
Never.
That word settled deep inside her chest.
The Night Before
The last happy memory came wrapped in ordinary.
Her mother was teaching her how to stir soup without splashing.
Her father was fixing something in the living room, pretending to grumble about “cheap screws.”
Amara danced between rooms.
“Sit down,” her mother laughed.
“I’m helping!”
“You’re spinning.”
“I spin very responsibly.”
Her father leaned into the kitchen doorway.
“She gets that from you.”
Her mother pretended to glare.
Amara twirled once more, dizzy with joy.
She didn’t know it would be the last normal evening.
She didn’t know laughter could have an expiration date.
She didn’t know promises could be broken by things bigger than love.
But years later — in hospital corridors, on cold streets, in moments when she felt herself fading — she would return to that kitchen in her mind.
To mango trees.
To sunrise lessons.
To a father who believed darkness never won forever.
To a mother who said pain did not stay sharp.
And in those memories, she remembered something crucial:
She had once been a child who was cherished.
The world had not always been cruel.
And that meant cruelty was not the natural order.
Love was.
This flashback does something important:
It gives her emotional grounding.
It makes her loss personal.
It shows what was stolen.
It explains why she fights so hard to give her children warmth.
- Writer
