When the Silence Settles
Lorís Simón Salum
When silence settles, in the in between spaces, questions arise from the Other world. They peel off the walls and steam from the carpet. I can smell the air densifying; I understand I am in the company of something living. These questions, they test reality. What is real? Just a moment ago I believed that my children were real, being a mother is real. Seeing my patients and driving my car is real. This is what dictates the direction of my gaze. This is where my thoughts “should” remain, or so I was told, in an endless alignment with all that I see and what I can touch.
In the darkness, however, a separate pair of eyes awaken. They respond to a world underneath this one. They have no iris, no pupil. Their structure is indifferent to photons. These secret observers are sensitive to something else. Maybe they find home in the abyss, where it is the dark matter that interrupts their sleep (brings wakefulness). What is real? In this place, invisible currents of purpose direct the truth. Echoes of what I believe to be my name vibrate at the core. It is real? These very eyes are witnessing it all. If there is such a thing as alignment in here, I surrender to it.
It is in the folds; it is in the in-between when both pairs of eyes will touch over a fleeting second. It is in this precise crack in time that an astronomical event occurs: muted shock waves of questions breathe themselves into life. A temporary universe is forged into existence. My membranes expand and I hold the exhale in fear of annihilation. What is real? and I am haunted with an aching desperation to settle into one reality or the other. I wonder how long the human body is meant to withstand a state of pure potential. Which pair of eyes does the organism respond to? Which reality does it collapse into? When the silence settles and words leave the room, when I lose my body—a dismemberment of the soul—incandescence emerges. Komorebi.
Only the sun and the moon carry the knowledge of what it is like to witness the effects of nuclear fusion in complete soundlessness. I boldly pretend to understand, not because I crave importance but because of what it would mean for Nonsense to steal my experience. If realities were a living race and they carried patterns like the mortals, the celestial bodies would know what I cannot. They would tell me that it is all real and generously reconstruct my human figure. I imagine my structure would be changed after it had been touched by something cosmic.
The clock would say my aphonia lasted for a few minutes, a few hours—maybe even a few days. My eyes would whisper that it lasted an eternity, that it is still happening, within one reality or another.
I still remember a time when I would collapse during tension, collapse into one reality or the other. I anticipated the cycles of these eyes with passion or terror, sometimes both. Like the knight from the Arthurian myth who comes across a pit and tastes a piece of fish that burns his tongue, I was tasting something I was unable to fully consume. I was unable to distinguish between the aftertaste of fish and the flavor of burnt flesh. Simultaneously, to say that I have mastered the art of questions would be a blatant lie. Instead, I would say my joints and tendons are a bit looser, better adept to the morphing of multiple existences.
Lorís Simón Salum is a psychotherapist in private practice in Houston, TX. She is the author of Ensoulment: Exploring the Feminine Principle in Western Culture (2016), as well as the film director of the multi award-winning documentary Ensoulment: A Diverse Analysis of the Feminine in Western Culture (2013). She was the Creative Director for Literal Magazine for over 10 years. Some of her projects included Literally Short Film Festival, Literal’s short international film festival, and Literally Everything, Literal’s podcast. You can find her at www.lorissimon.com.
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Posted: January 29, 2026 at 9:20 pm
