Silent Damage
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Not like in the movies, with the camera tilting and the blood rushing in your ears. This is quieter than that. Like the air forgets how to breathe. Like your body stops trusting itself. Like a room full of light suddenly goes deaf.
That moment, for me, came in a kitchen with pale tiles and the sound of a knife sliding across a plate. Not fast. Not violent. JustâĻ deliberate. And then he looked up. And I knew. I knew I would leave, or I would vanish.
No one tells you how soft the beginning of the end can be. They donât tell you about the way he smiles while asking if you're okay, the way he waits just long enough before answering your question, so you feel the shame of having asked it at all. They donât warn you that sometimes love doesnât break like glass, it seeps like poison.
I didnât leave because I was brave. I left because something inside meâĻ the smallest, most stubborn part of me, refused to die quietly. That part didnât care if I was safe. It cared if I was still real. Still me. But even after I ran, I kept checking the shadows. Not just for him. For the part of me that believed him. For the part that still waited to be punished for leaving. For the silence that felt like a hand over my mouth.
I thought survival would be the hardest part. I was wrong. The hardest part was learning that survival isnât the end of the story. Sometimes, itâs only the first page.
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John Berry was born in Rhodesia. He lived there for six years then emigrated to Durban, South Africa. He went to Marist Brothers College. After matriculation, he did national service as a paratrooper and fought in the Angolan war in 1975. He traveled extensively, lived in England for two years, then emigrated to Brisbane, Australia. He spends his time researching and writing fiction novels.
