She is struggling to remember where she went wrong. She thought things were progressing smoothly with Mark. How did things get so screwed up?

"I love the simple life where choices are effortless," she announced to Mark.

Mark said, "No simple life is without complicated choses. Where to live, where to go to school, what to read, what to plant in the garden, even, who to buy the seeds from for the garden. The choosing never stops."

"I think living the simple life means keeping an open mind when making choices. And there is no one who's more open minded than me," she said.

Mark said, "Biases are funny things. Some use circular logic. Thinking you have an open mind and no biases is itself a bias. If you thinking you are more open minded than others you are likely not."

"But really, I'm less biased than any of my friends," she insisted.

Mark said, "You've fallen for the Blind Spot Bias where the mind is fooling itself, then proudly congratulating itself on its cleverness."

"No I haven't. No I'm not. What the hell is Blind Spot Bias?" she said a bit too loudly.

The conversation devolved from there. She raised her voice in denial, losing control of her arms. Flaying like Charlie Chaplin directing traffic in Times Square, and slapped Mark's right cheek putting his fancy Cabernet in a slow-motion flight across the room, spilling its contents like an airplane fire retardant drop. The wine quenched any blaze that might have been smoldering in Tom and Mimi's new carpet.

The rest of the evening and the lonely trip home were a blur. Sitting on her bed, struggling to make sense of her actions, Sarah sees a text she'd not noticed on her phone.

"Coffee?" was from Mark only an hour ago.

Thumb typing like an 11-year-old after stealing a few swigs of her dad's beer, "yws" then rethinking that, pounding the backspace button frantically with her right thumb, then trying "maybr." No, that wouldn't do, "sooory, i didn't mean to hit you" No, that wouldn't do either. So she let her thumbs blurted out, "Love to have coffee." SEND Laying the phone on the bed, slumping with her hands cupping her eyes, thinking she was making a big mistake. She waited for what would happen next.

Chime! -- "Oh, NO!" she screamed into the empty room, launching her phone into a flight like Mark's wine with the same wild juggling gyrations that had gotten her into this mess.

She looks down and sees, "How about now?" Her heart sinks into her stomach.

This flash fiction essay should be filed under the “Is this anything?” category, one unpolished story for your consideration in roughly 500 words, give or take.

How much silence do we need? Starting from silence, we develop the ability to hear sounds in the warmth of the womb. Few sounds are present in this living environment; the heart beating, blood being circulated, and mom’s rhythmic breathing.

When hearing starts, according to those studying ‘learning in the womb,’ and the sound gets turned on, we become developed enough to recognize sounds. Then we’re birthed into a life filled with a cacophony of noise.

While living in Bend, Oregon, I sought asylum in the Three Sisters Wilderness at every opportunity. Particularly bright in memory is a time when climbing a ridge leading to the constellations of broken peaks named Broken Top.

It was cold, and as darkness approached, near timberline, the last tree protected alcove on the ridge became my campsite. The campsite consisted of a ground tarp held down with rocks, a warm sleeping bag, and a few rocks large enough to sit on and use as a platform for cooking. The remnant cirque of the nine thousand foot sleeping stratovolcano was on the windward side of a group of Mountain Hemlocks that were providing protection from the wind.

The geologically ragged remains of Broken Top loomed behind the curtain of Mountain Hemlocks. The volcano last erupted 100,000 years ago, and just out of sight from my camp, I could feel, even hear her silence. Like anxiously anticipating the awaking of a sleeping giantess.

Simon Aeberhard, in his 2017 essay titled “Writing the Ephemeral,” he says, “Falling silent or even the possibility of sudden silence is filled with meaning …” Slowly it occurs that life grows quieter. Silence is filled with significance. This possibility of you falling silent to the world is always in front of you. A promise that will one day be actualized.