I swear I didn’t mean to be this curious. But here I am, muting my TV so I can listen to someone’s sobbing.
It started innocently, I swear. I was just about to take my after-work nap when I heard someone’s voice crack into tears. You know that sound? The one that comes right before crying; the throat fighting it, losing anyway.
I snapped my eyes open, terrified, convinced the sound was inside my house. It had that closeness, like it was sitting on the couch, just there, breathing . I got up, half-awake, and started searching for where it was coming from.
In the living room, it grew louder. I felt a thin line of sweat trace down my temple. I could hear someone’s sadness, and I couldn’t do anything about it. It was the kind of crying that sounded like someone was holding everything in until a random Wednesday when everything finally breaks.
No one. Nothing.
My cat, Festouq, wasn’t here. My sister had taken him somewhere — something I probably would’ve remembered an hour ago, before the afternoon turned into a blur.
The crying was real.
Muffled. Broken. Human.
I stood in the living room, frozen. The crying kept rising and falling, waves hitting a wall I couldn’t see. Then it stopped.
Silence.
The kind of silence that doesn’t calm you down; it just waits for the next noise to start.
I waited too.
When it came back, it was softer. A low, tired sound – someone trying to cry quietly but failing. I turned off the lights, turned on the TV, raised the volume to the highest. Yet I still found myself shifting, listening for the crying, unable to focus, knowing that someone was there, crying, probably needing help.
Then silence again. For a good half hour, there was nothing. I could hear my own breathing now; I could focus on the TV and catch the sound of cars beeping outside again.
Later that night, I went downstairs to buy something I didn’t need, maybe potato chips, maybe nuts, or maybe I just needed to see someone. I can’t remember what I was planning to do before the crying started; everything after that felt a little off. The corridor smelled of cleaning detergent and cooked onions. Someone’s door was half-open, light leaking into the hallway.
The elevator doors opened, and she was there, my neighbor from next door.
She looked smaller than I expected. Her hair tied loosely, eyes swollen, red around the edges. She kept sniffling, that quiet, automatic sound people make when they’re trying not to cry again.
And that’s when I knew. The sound. The crying. It had been her all along.
I stepped in as the rusty-green doors closed behind me.
I kept staring at the floor numbers lighting up: Three, two, one – as if they could distract me from the thought that I should say something. Anything.
“Are you okay?”
“Rough day?”
“Do you need—”
None of them made it past my mouth. It felt creepy, like she’d know I’d been listening to her all day. It was too weird. But I needed to know if she was okay, and for some reason, I couldn’t say a word.
Instead, I nodded when she glanced at me. The kind of nod that’s supposed to mean everything and ends up meaning nothing.
When the elevator reached the ground floor, she walked out first. I stood there a second longer, pretending to check my phone, pretending I was too busy to care.
Now, every time I see her in the hallway, at the mini-market, or carrying groceries, I don’t say a word. We both pretend nothing ever happened. Or maybe I’m the only one pretending. Every time I see her now, I feel a small sting of shame.
Months have passed since the incident, and I still catch myself overthinking it.
I keep asking myself what exactly I was afraid of.
Was it her sadness?
Did anyone else hear her and do something, while I just waited for the noise to stop?
Would it really have been that hard to say one word?
Sometimes, late at night, I still mute the TV for no reason.
Just to make sure it’s quiet.
