CREATIVE WRITING
F I C T I O N Silence Kit Parsons (Year 7)
also disagreed with those who argued that Sonia Benedict, Alone was an acknowledgment by Benedict of her own explosive narcissism. It was hardly a solipsistic work: indeed, the presence in the background of Death to America, October 1978 gave the Alone of the title some delicious irony. Kenneth had found it moving enough that he dedicated his life to understanding Sonia Benedict, who he never had the opportunity to meet, whose homeland he had never visited and whose language he could not speak. Sonia Benedict was the only woman he had ever loved. Kenneth stood still in front of Death to America, October 1978 and Sonia Benedict, Alone. The Bangkok Museum had performed quite a feat by acquiring both of them and displaying them side by side shortly after Benedict’s death from a cocaine overdose at the age of 34. What was really fascinating was that the Death to America, October 1978 in the background of the later work was undamaged, but the Death to America, October 1978 on permanent display in Bangkok had a gaping hole where Michel Foucault’s face had once been. It had been quite the scandal when the 28-year- old Benedict had vandalised her own painting the morning before it was due to go on exhibition. Kenneth had never been able to establish why Benedict had defaced Foucault but not Khomeini. He had taken his wife’s word for it that reading Foucault’s vacuous books would not provide him with any answers. Kenneth thought for a while about his wife and about Sonia Benedict. He wished tears would spring into his eyes, that this would be a moment of epic significance within his life, that someone would be on hand to film it or write a story about it or paint a picture of it. But he knew that no- one gave a damn about him. He had wasted his life writing books about a vain Englishwoman and poetry about feelings he had never felt. About, about, about. The word about – an ugly word, if you thought about it – no one had ever thought or felt or written anything about him. For a few minutes Kenneth Nistiyana tried to convince himself of the rational case for walking up to Sonia Benedict, Alone and punching a hole through her pretty, teary face. The gallery air-con blew down his neck and an English family barged in front of him and talked inanely about Sonia Benedict for a few seconds and went away forever. Kenneth looked over the paintings one more time — admiring Foucault’s eyes, Khomeini’s eyes and Sonia’s eyes – and then walked to the exit and called a taxi. It was sunset, and as the car thundered towards his hotel he listened to his wife’s voice on his phone. It was soft and steady.
I t was a moonless night, dark and gritty, when out of the mist came a boat more light than steel. The bright yellow glow swallowed the ship whole and the dark shadowy figures on the deck were like shadowy projections on a night-time wall. It came closer to the harbour. But no anchor was dropped, no horn was sounded — only silence and silence and silence. Slowly the light grew ever larger and more apparent. The room was quiet and dark and damaged. But in the night the beams of light shone through the window. The light flickered and danced on the wall, acting out a play of shadows. But tonight it was corrupted by a seam of yellow light peering through the window. This woke the occupant, a man by the name of Strauss Strandlewaltz. He lifted his plump head and peered at the window. He got up and went to it. His eyes weren’t adjusted, so all he saw was a bright yellow light coming towards him. But only just did he realise what it was, before suddenly…
Silence.
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