The silence in the room wasn’t empty. It was a weight, a physical pressure against my eardrums. Forty of us packed into the basement, and the only sound was the hum of the fluorescent lights and the soft, rhythmic squeak of Stu’s thumb stroking his wife’s thigh. He was doing it again. Right in the middle of us. Her name was Anna, and she was twenty years younger than him, maybe more. She stared straight ahead, her face a placid mask, but I saw the muscle twitch in her jaw. He wasn’t just touching her; he was using her as a prop, a demonstration of the control he had over everything—especially the women, and by extension, the men who desired them.
I kept my hands folded in my lap, my nails digging into my palms. Don’t fidget. Don’t talk too fast if he calls on you. Idiot. The memory of last month’s meeting burned in my gut. I’d tried to explain an idea for the neighborhood cleanup, my words tripping over each other. Stu had let me finish, a slow smile spreading across his face, before he mimicked me, his voice a frantic, high-pitched gibberish. The room had erupted in laughter, not the kind-hearted kind, but the sharp, nervous barking of people relieved it wasn’t them. That’s where I was on the pole: so low I was underground.
My eyes flicked to Sarah, sitting across the circle. She was the reason I was really sweating. Not because of Stu, not this time. Last week, we’d been sorting donations, and for a second, our hands had touched. It was nothing, but it wasn’t. I’d seen it in her eyes, that same dangerous flicker I felt. If Stu knew, if anyone suspected… they’d use it. They’d drag it out in a meeting like this, not to help, but to dissect. To prove you were “in the dark,” controlled by lust instead of the spirit. It was the ultimate weapon, the secret everyone kept and everyone feared.
“What is up with the brothers?” Stu’s voice was calm, almost lazy, but it landed in the room like a lit match. “Why is it so silent?”
An hour. It had been a full hour since he’d spoken. My throat was dry. My mind raced, sifting through possibilities. Is it a trick question? Is the answer ‘silence’? No, he’d call me a smartass. Is it about our spirit? Our lack of faith? Every potential answer felt like stepping on a landmine. I watched Mark, two rows up, a golden boy who always sat near the top of the pole. He was sweating. Even he didn’t know. The air grew thick with the scent of cheap carpet and collective anxiety. I could feel the guy next to me, Dave, practically vibrating with the need to say something, to fill the void. I prayed he wouldn’t. Dave’s answers were always wrong.
Finally, Dave stood. “I think,” he began, his voice cracking, “I think the silence is a reflection of our… our inner stillness. A reverence.”
A groan almost escaped my lips. Wrong answer.
Stu didn’t even look at him. He just kept stroking Anna’s leg. “Reverence,” he repeated, tasting the word. “Is that what you call it, Dave? Fear. It smells like fear. You’re scared of your own shadow. Sit down.”
Dave collapsed into his chair, his face flushed. The silence that followed was heavier, more suffocating than before. He hadn’t just been wrong; he’d been diagnosed. And we were all next.