Silence

Sunday Silence, by Halo out of Wishing Well, never finished worse than second in any of his races.

He won both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes in 1989.

He lost the Belmont Stakes to Easy Goer, by Alydar out of Relaxing.

And so, there was no Triple Crown winner in 1989.

When he first came to this town he had hoped that the silence of other years would not follow him. He had rented a little room near a park where young men annd women of many races were always shouting in excited voices over their games. Then, finding that he had no part in their merriment, he moved to another section of the town near a large bakery shop where workers were continously coming in and out of the building. But even as he stood in the street below his room, they passed by him as though he had not existed at all. So in desperation he moved to another section, in an old but neat rooming house across the town college. The silence followed him there, had wrapped up his life almost completely, so that now it was five years since he had talked to another human being.

There was never silence. There were the sounds of the refrigerator, of a fan, of a car going by outside, the screaming of children in the street, the screaming of imaginary audiences in the neighbors' television speakers. There was sound, but never any meaning.

Soon spring was gone and summer came with its hot days. The leaves of the trees matured. The fruits ripened. The wind that came from the sea was warm. And then in the middle of June the girl disappeared. He could not believe it. When he came home from work he would watch the pathway toward the street. But she was gone forever. Then a year was gone. Then another. He could not believe that she was gonne forever. He waited for another year. But she did not come back. He had long stopped working, and the curtains were now unwashed and fading.
Then one night he leaned far out the window and wept bitterly, hearing the silence coming from everywhere around him.