heart in a cage

The Silenced Land: Hearts Trapped in Cages

“Your eyes were as bright as the sun, even when you opened them for the first time,” said my mum with her watery eyes as she was putting off her ocean-blue necklace. “This necklace will burn whenever there is an urgent situation, just calm down and run honey.” she continued. Although Otto may have told you that we didn’t tell anyone when leaving town, I couldn’t risk it. Otto is the kindest of a man with a huge heart full of love but he has no faith in abstract things and certainly has no clue about the history of our beloved town. That’s why he couldn’t understand the signs, signs of the odd ones coming.

People of the silenced land and the odd ones share the same ancestors. When the Korean missile first landed, people got separated according to their hearing ability. The ones who heard each other well enough emigrated to a valley kilometres away from today’s silenced land. As they attached so much importance to communication with the outer world, they developed exponentially. However, on a desert-like island with no indication of life, it was almost impossible to build a city for about 200 people. In order to accomplish this, they dug through more than 20 kilometres of ground and built an underground city with potato lands, sinks connected to underground water and cells for everyone to have privacy.

More than 200 years have passed and this underground city is now more developed than ever. Many vegetables and fruits are grown, there is almost no pollution and the population is around a thousand. How do I know all of these? Because me and my family were born in this beautiful city and lived there peacefully until the introduction of oil. Now, everyone loves oil and uses it excessively for many goods.  I am too young to remember the days when oil was first introduced but my mum always says that everyone seems to forget how many people we had lost while trying to drill it and building pipelines. I faintly remember the sudden change in my family after we lost my dad in one of those oil accidents. That was why we decided to leave “the odds” and moved to the silenced land. Unfortunately, life in the silenced land was unpleasant and tasteless until I met Otto and fell in love.

They say that love is the strongest and it drives you to do even the most crazy sacrifices. But I guess that wasn’t true for me. When I heard that deep, scary voice and the black, sinister birds floating up on us; I immediately understood that it was a cry for help from the odd ones. The strong, blood-like smell of the pipes terrified me and I had to leave Otto. He couldn’t have learnt all the lies that I told him. I disappeared in the oil mixture quickly and climbed down the hidden stairs to the city. My mother, who followed us on the way, took care of Otto as he was stuck in the pipeline.

The city smelled like blood and ashes. The blackened walls of flats weren’t helping with the view either. Walking some more through the city, I realized that it was evacuated. Just as I was about to go back to the surface, I felt a sudden burn on my neck. “The necklace!” I screamed and I started to climb up the stairs. Unfortunately, it was too late. The immense electric shock immediately knocked me cold.

When I opened my eyes, I was in a small flat with my childhood friend Erica. With an aching back, I straightened up and asked her what happened to the city. “An unidentified arsonist,” said Erica. “Now, I will ask for permission to leave.” she added. I was deeply confused and stared at the empty walls for a while. The door screeched and I thought I had a heart attack seeing my dad who had been pronounced to be dead. “Hello Linda, I missed you a lot.” he said. For a solid 15 minutes, I thought I had lost my mind but I managed to stay calm after that and listened to what my dad had got to say.

“I know you are not going to believe me but your mom is the arsonist. Years before, the day of the oil rig accident, your mom was giving birth to a beautiful little girl and it was a very hard labour. Just as the nurse was putting the coal on fire to heat some water, you jumped into the room with a cup of oil that you sneaked out of the field to play with. As the nurse bumped on to you, the oil splashed and set the whole room on fire. You and your mum were the only ones to survive. After that, she almost lost her mind and blamed me all for talking too much about the oil with you. Less than 2 days after the incident, she left the town suddenly. However, I never stopped looking for you and have been watching you for the last 2 years. Believe me or not Linda but she hasn’t forgiven you about that accident. That’s why she gave you the remote-controlled electric shock necklace.” my dad said.

Of course, I didn’t believe him instantly but the old goodbye letter written with the exact handwriting of my mum and all other letters about how she is going to burn down the city convinced me. More than 30 years have passed since that day and I still have no courage to go back to “The Silenced Land”. I sometimes go near-by and watch my Otto milk the cows. It hurts me to see him suffer in vain because of my foolishness, but that is also what keeps me away from him. Now all I have is a lonely, little flat with no sunlight and an old poem book which I read over and over. My favourite one says I still have a verse to play, yet I have already lost all the battles against myself:

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
                                Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
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