Silence -- A short, short story

She said, “What do you think we should take away from all this?”

He said, “I don’t know.” He crossed his legs, left over right. The chair was deep and he would have a little trouble getting up. He liked the color of the chair and the fabric. The color was beige and brown, alternating stripes, and the fabric an open weave. He liked the wide arms, too, but he always had to push off from the arms. He said, “Do we have to take away anything?”

“You have to take away something from everything you do, don’t you?”

There was silence, except not really, because never is there real silence. He knew that, like in a movie or TV show where two people have talked and no one can offer anything else for the moment and you get this loud empty sound. No one is saying anything; there is no dog barking outside, no fire or police siren far off, no children laughing at play, and the two people who were talking no longer are because nether has anything to say. But the room that should be silent is not, because the empty sound is there, loudly there, as though listeners turned up volume on their listening devices and you get this almost tunnel sound.

That’s the way it was when she said “You have to take away something from everything you do, don’t you?” He knew she would say something else; she always did. She could not abide silence.

Science fiction short-short story

VOICE DATA RECOVERY, RS MONTII, AK-1124, BR996 SYSTEM

Background: Attack Transport AK-1124 was part of Task Force Slate, 21st Fleet, enroute to reinforce OP Garnett, an outpost on the planet Ophelia V. On 21 Fulcrum last, Task Force Slate came under attack by ships yet unknown. Other data indicate enemy utilized a tight-beam weapon to take out gun stations on AK-1124, beginning with Station One and working aft. The following is a transcript from Gun Station Four and is from the only voice recorder so far recovered. Voices have not been identified; however the nature of the conversation led analysts to conclude one speaker is a young sailor and the other is a chief gunners mate.

VOICE ONE: Chief, are they going to hit us?

VOICE TWO: Given the previous strikes, yes.

PAUSE

VOICE ONE: Will it hurt?

VOICE TWO: No.