Notes On Silence / Even A Kind Dog Will Bite

(if you poke it long enough)

TW: S*A

Silence does not eradicate action. Silence does not eradicate truth. Silence, really, is a furnace. It is a place where things harden, take shape, become. In this way, silence is a tool, a utensil or a weapon. Silence is a room. Silence holds things. It creates. It draws things out, like a tweezer with a splinter. Like a kiln with a glaze on porcelain. It reveals.

Silence shows what is hidden just as much as it hides what is shown.

And, in October, it was silent in my bedroom. Darkness covered the carpet, the duvet, my naked body. Then, later, that silence revealed. It framed small noises that would have undoubtedly been hidden by the sounds of daytime. I was woken up because my bedroom was, otherwise, silent.

The police told me, later, that a person had broken into my house twice that night. They knew this from fingerprints, digital footprints, strewn candlesticks and upturned rugs. The first time, the person stole a mobile phone from my bedside. This, we can only assume, was to stop you from calling us - the policeman said.

Your voice, even when you scream, is only as loud as a nearby person can hear. If no one is near, then did you really scream?

The second time, the person stole me. They stole me with their touch, uninvited, that hollowed me out like an egg blown empty from the most minuscule of holes. I looked the same that day after, and the months that have followed since. I look the same now. I had no bruises, no grazes, and my shell had not been cracked. But I have been unequivocally changed from the inside.

His touches were subtle at first. Silent. Firm enough to stir my sleep but light enough to keep me in it - and for a long time, I had no way of knowing how long the touch had been happening. What had been taken from me. What body parts had been handled. Then, a touch too hard, a press too strong, a move too loud and I woke up. My eyes opened and I felt him - at the foot of my bed, under the covers. Head hidden. Touch intact. A clinging contact. He didn’t know I was awake.

Around that time, I had been seeing someone, and he was lying fast asleep beside me, wrapped up in a dream. What would happen if I spoke to him? Tried to wake him up, screamed out for help, kicked the person at the end of my bed, away from me? What would happen if I failed to wake him, but showed the person touching me, that I now knew what they were doing?

I immediately believed that my silence, in lucidity, was the only thing protecting me in that moment. What would this person do to shut me up? What would they do to stop my screaming? What would they do to keep my witness unaware?

Then, in fragments, were more touches, a prod in the side, a rumble, a yell, a quick jolt, a hidden face, a loud crash followed by two or three rushed shadows, a door pushed open, a stumble, one glass bottle in hand, four eyes ungluing, lights turning on, fingers tapping numbers on a screen and one long wait. Then, a car pulling up, uniforms arriving, swabs being taken, thick paper bags opening and a front door closing behind us. Then, our legs walking us, silently, down the road, away from the house, towards the morning.

We lay beside one another, with a baseball bat by the bedside, in silence. No one had been caught at this point. No one had been seen. I was, under no circumstance, permitted to wash away the evidence, and was to wait until the crime scene on my skin had been thoroughly investigated. I could not move, could not wipe or brush, could not wear tight clothes. Could not speak. Everything I knew for certain was written invisibly on my skin because I hadn’t seen a face and I hadn’t heard a voice. I had only felt someone and heard them leave. But their touches were loud, scorching.

Then, I lay on my back, still naked, again, as a man in blue rubber gloves swabbed my entire body for proof. The crisis centre I was taken to had no music. The nearest road was tucked away. It was not raining. There was no wind. All I could hear, again, was the sound of touches. These touches were light enough to be indiscernible in any other moment, but so loud, so piercing, in this one. They were professional and measured. Calculated, but for a different reason to those only hours before. I lay there for an hour and a half, eyes to the ceiling. My body was a patch of soil, each inch turned over, the way an allotment is before a changing season. But, unlike new soil revealed beneath hardened old soil, I still looked the same.

When the hour and a half was over, I rattled towards a shower that I was now allowed to stand under.

I scanned the bathroom for bleach. The apple scented body wash they handed me was not strong enough. I wanted to strip my skin bare, remove it like peel from a fruit - but when I looked under the sink, beside the toilet and in the cupboards I couldn’t find anything strong enough to get rid of what had happened. Then, in vain, I tried to increase the water pressure to bruise away the points of contact. It was set to a perpetually light drizzle, like the threat of rain, and only reached a certain tepid temperature, too.

I remember thinking;

I’m not the first to feel this way - and they hide the bleach, dull the water pressure, mute the heat and knock for me to come out after ten minutes, because I won’t be the last, either

---

I went to Madrid in February. I wanted to distract myself from the unfamiliarity of my body by surrounding myself with it in new streets and languages, instead. Each morning, I would walk to a nearby park and sit on a bench in a square, drinking water and watching people mill to and away from a central fountain. At the same time each day, a kind dog would tread over to the fountain and bow its head to drink. No bigger than a crouching body, the dog was clean and quiet, content among the business of the city. I watched it drink countless times, and countless people pet it softly, wrinkling its collarless neck with affectionate touch as it continued to drink, undisturbed.

One morning, I watched a large group walk up to the fountain, carrying bags and cameras, phones and food. They reached the fountain and surrounded it, leaving no space at the water’s edge, leaning over and splashing their hands across the surface, dropping litter into the pool. Soon after, the dog trod over and stood, watching the group. When a clearing was made at the foot of the fountain, the dog lowered its head to the water and began to drink. A few figures; some with greying hair and a busy attitude, others in construction wear, some young in beach clothing, smoking joints, others holding toddlers at their hip - began to jibe the dog. Hands splashed it, while others lightly pulled at its back legs. A few feet kicked at its flank, and at one point a cup of something indiscernible was poured over it.

The dog did not react. It continued to drink water, eyes closed, silent.

Then, they began to poke the dog. Across its back, legs and tail. Over and over and over they poked, moving towards its face, eyes, nose and tongue. The dog snarled, but on they continued, with hard jabs that were relentless. On and on and on they went until the dog, wet, shivering, bent at its joints and snapped. It turned its head in a flash, teeth bared, and bit into a nearby arm.

---

I am so tired of being quiet. Of putting the thoughts of others before my own. I am tired of being prodded and poked, being spoken about, letting rumours fester like putrid food and staying silent in the hope that the smell and the harm will pass.

I am a woman who called the police because someone broke into my home at two in the morning and sexually assaulted me in my own bed. I had been lying asleep next to a man I have known since I was six years old. The man who sexually assaulted me did so in a way that made sure I was silent. He stole a phone from the side of the bed closest to the door but did not steal mine, from underneath my pillow. I woke up, and in that moment as I was being touched in places and ways I won’t ever forget, I thought of outcomes that I believed to be inevitable; I was being violated, I was going to be raped, I was going to murdered, we were both going to be murdered, or that we could, maybe, somehow, survive. I tried, silently, to wake the man beside me in a way that would be fast enough to catch or stop what was happening. But the person who had been touching me all over my body, ran away before we could see their face. Their head was down, the room was dark. We heard them hit the stairs as they left. We called for help.

I am a woman who called the police because someone broke into my home at two in the morning and sexually assaulted me in my own bed. I did not know he was my neighbour. I did not know he was your friend. I did not know he was your husband. I did not know he was your colleague. I did not know why he chose me. I did not know he had left evidence. I did not know he had admitted to it. I did not know who they arrested. I did not know you would react in this way. I did not know you would reject me. I did not know you would doubt me. I did not know you would hate me. I did not know you would silence me. I did not know what would happen after.

I am a woman who called the police because someone broke into my home at two in the morning and sexually assaulted me in my own bed - but you have sisters, mothers, aunties, daughters and friends. You have bodies that lie in beds at night and skin that rests untouched.

Do not pretend you would not call the police. Do not pretend that this is your skin to bare or a story to bend. Do not pretend that you have supported me.

I am the dog, drinking water at the fountain.

This is my bite.