Creative Non-Fiction: The Servants of Silence. The Introduction
The Servants of Silence
Some of the times the silent ones have something to hide. Some of the times they are complicated people, some of the times they’re just shy, and some of the times they don’t know what to say. But there are others who feel trapped into silence for varying reasons.
The Servants of Silence is the title of a series of pieces I have put together to try to understand those silent types among us that we believed were complicated or shy, until we all found out the hard way it was something else. I’d love to report to you today that I was on top of all this. I’d love to say that I knew what it was that made them different. I would love to say I knew what made them tick. I’d love to tell you that I, Mr. Writer, used my powers of observation on these people, and I saw what made them tick. I didn’t.
Some of these characters, and their characteristics, found their way into my fiction. The others, these orphans, have been toiling away in my brain, screaming for a home. They are an uncomfortable lot, so I have changed their names to protect their innocence, but other than that everything I write about them is 100% true.
The Servants of Silence are those people who don’t know how to express themselves in one way or another. They are the types you can find sitting in the corner of a crowded room–in get togethers or parties–trying to figure out what to say. Some of the times, they figure that the best thing to say is nothing at all. It’s a strange strategy that they’ve developed to give meaning to their presence. They’re willing to try anything to be noticed at this point, but they’ve accidentally–through their own doing–made their presence inconsequential, until we forgot they were there.
Disclaimer: Some may find some of the language used in these profiles to be objectionable or offensive. This is not the goal of any of these pieces. Where it was possible, I attempted to remove the objectionable words, as I did not want to distract from the intellectual pursuits of these pieces, but there were other moments in these pieces where I found the attempts to remove the objectionable words were a distraction in and of themselves. In those cases, as in Ben Amidallo, the objectionable words only enhance the characterization I was seeking.
