The Sound of Silence

     Not the song, but actually the sound of silence, is completely awful.   Maybe it's a small ADD part of me that feels the need for constant stimulation, but frankly, I need constant stimulation.  There is such a thing as too quiet.   The two places I come across this most are at work and in my mother's house.  Also my mother's car.  Well, pretty much anywhere with my mother.
     I find the silence creepy.  And what's worse is that it makes every small sound made within the cone of silence grating.  The sound of the air conditioner/heater blowing through the vents provides just the right amount of white noise to try to lull me to sleep.  I hear every key stroke.  My eye lids make a sound as they scrape across my drying contact lenses.  It's terrifying.  I put my earbuds in sometimes, but then even at their lowest possible volume, they seem deafening.  Oh god, what if someone hears that?
     Mouse-click.  Backspace, backspace.  Mouse-click.  Chair squeak,  the door three offices over opened and closed, sneeze.  I always imagined offices to have more white noise.  On The Office there's lots.  People are talking, making copies, playing jokes.  Not here.  There's something about the silence that apparently promotes productivity.  It's the tension, I'm sure.
     And then there's the tension surrounding my mother.  She doesn't like music.  This can't really be true, but she never listens to it.  She doesn't play music in her house, and she doesn't play it in her car.  And if there were constant chatter or something, I would understand it.  But there isn't.  Instead there is just eerie silence.  So eerie it makes you afraid to say anything.   A simple question can get catapulted into an argument, just for breaking the silence. 
      We sit at the table finishing our lunch.  I start chewing an ice cube; I should know better, clearly.  I've cut the silence and hit her last nerve.  It's hard to relive, but let it suffice it to say, it is not a relaxing place to be.  Someone (me) usually storms out.  Often to be alone, where I can make noise.
     I do appreciate a certain level of silence for certain things, I'm not an animal.  At funerals, for example.  Other times though, the complete tension forming eerie silence drives me mad.  Completely insane.