Laying in silence is a terrible existence. 

I have learned to never trust it. The quiet and peace was something I would always thrive in, but there is no peace left in it. My bedsheets only covered my legs and the rest of the sheets poured onto the floor in a messy puddle of comfort. I pawed the left side of the bed, and she was missing. 

Last night we sat in unnerving almost silence. We ate microwavable spaghetti dinners, the television man reporting the new headlines in the background. Tuning out the television has been a learned behavior. It was over, but it still could not erase my memories of death reports, nuclear sirens blaring, the risk of death every day. I was just seventeen when it began. A child. I could never forget this. I focused on the silence so hard that the television became static.

Tsh Tsh Tsh. 

Lovers who go through tragedy together develop in mysterious ways. Romance is rationed during war; the unfamiliar familiarity grows as the death total stacks up. She busies herself, goes to work every day and takes extended hours. She busies herself to forget. On the other hand, I am a man who rarely leaves my bedroom, rarely looks out the window, rarely wants to exist. 

A collection of cars screeched and screamed outside the bedroom window. People were leaving town, trying to forget. If you listen closely, you can hear the birds sing. If you listen closely, you can hear the bells ring. These sounds were the only things that sounded alive. They were the living among the dead. 

We all want to heal. We are all trying to heal. The war is over and we are beginning.