When the World Went Quiet

A late-night drive, a quiet world, and the beauty of silence.

Heading back from seeing Reminders of Him at the Summit AMC (the nearest mall that all the Samford girls rave about), I was reminded that I initially did not want to see the movie at 10:30 PM. Leaving the movie, I was alarmed to see that it was a quarter to one. I briskly walked to the Mazda with my friend following in suit. The moment we put our seatbelts on, picked a playlist, and put in the directions back to school, my friend opened the roof of the car and rolled down her window. Pulling away from the parking lot, I did the same. Suddenly, it didn't really feel like the night was over yet.

As we drove through the neighborhoods, the conversation kept shifting from topic to topic, and we laughed in between the sweetest moments of silence. The fresh night air made a mess of our hair, and I swiped some stray strands behind my ear, my friend sipping from her leftover soda. At some point in the drive, the noise just faded. 

Maybe it was the fact that it was late, or perhaps it was the faint smell of a campfire that wafted through the windows. It could have been the "summer nights" playlist that I put together for this coming summer at the lake, or the memories that surfaced of camping with my family. Whatever it was, it was intoxicating. I didn't want the drive to end. 

We pulled up to a red light next to an old truck—the kind of truck that would star in a country song's music video—and I had the chance to peer up over the silhouette of the forest trees at the freckles of white in the dark sky. I used to not notice stars. Isn't that wild? 

When the light turned green, we continued the rest of the drive in utter silence, and I couldn't help but think about the quiet. It took me until college to understand what a gift silence can be. Not the silence during an exam, which is a screaming silence of scratching pencils, bouncing knees, and churning minds. The silence of this night? That's the silence when the world goes quiet. 

And I think I'll remember that for a while.

summer nights