Silence

Contributor: Sean Crose

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We drove on, past the marshlands and amateur photographers, past the pavilions and dog walkers and made our way to the end of the park. It was a bright, warm day in early May.
Stepping out of the Chevy, we tossed our Dunkin Donuts cups in the public trash can and looked around. Couples, young and old, were scattered about, along with shirtless stoners and fishermen.
The most striking thing about the park, though, was the silence.
“Quiet,” Tara whispered as we headed toward the trail.
I nodded my head.
“Sometimes there's nothing louder than silence.”
We worked our way up to a set of wooden steps that led to a rocky hill overlooking the water. It was steeper than I had remembered.
“What's keeping you? I'm already at the top.”
“Gimme a minute,” I said. “I'm getting there.”
It was still quiet at the top of the rocky hill. From where we stood we could see the beaches and pavilions to the right and a lone sailboat far off in the water, to the left. Tara pointed to the stone pier that jutted out from the nearest beach.
“Look at those fishermen out on that pier. Think they'll catch anything?”
“Probably. Sea Robbins, at least.”
“What are Sea Robbins?”
“The kind of fish you don't want to catch.”
“What kind of fish do you want to catch?”
“Around here? Blues mostly. Blues and snappers.”
I looked out at the fishermen on the pier. They were probably using Bunker and Mackerel as bait. Frozen, of course. The salt water would melt the ice away in minutes, if not seconds.
“What are you thinking about?”
I shrugged.
“Surf casting.”
“Surf casting?”
I pointed out to the pier.
“What they're doing out there.”
“Why do they call it surf casting?”
“I dunno.”
“You used to do that, didn't you?” she asked. “Surf cast, I mean.”
“Sure did,” I nodded. “A long time ago.”
I turned away from the pier.
“Too long ago,” I added.
“What's that?”
“I said I should start surf casting again.”
“There's a lot of things you should start doing again.”
She was looking right at me.
“Life gets in the way.”
“Yeah. If you let it.”
I squinted out at the sailboat. It was far away by this time.
“Look at that sailboat,” I said. “All by itself out there without a care in the world.”
The silence was further broken by the sounds of two stoners making their way up the rocky hill from the opposite direction. They seemed surprised to see us, why I don't know. Maybe they thought they'd be all by themselves on top of that rocky hill, all by themselves without a care in the world.
They stood there for a moment, the two stoners and looked out at the fishermen on the pier before moving on.
“That was fast,” Tara laughed.
“I think they wanted to get going once they found out we were here.”
“They were probably just looking for a place to smoke.”
I nodded my head in agreement.
“Ready to move on?” she asked.


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My name is Sean Crose. I'm a writer of fiction, non-fiction, scripts and poetry (although fiction is where my heart and soul is). I live in Connecticut with my wife Jen, and Cody, the world's greatest cat.
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