[ WP ] It was the silence heard around the world . It was the silence that changed everything .

There's an old saying, `` A turtle only travels when it sticks its neck out''. I remember hearing it once on TV as a kid, and although I do n't remember exactly what was airing, that quote pops into my mind every now and then. I never gave it much thought, but it was true -- nothing would ever really happen if I kept sitting here, in front of my computer, day after day after day. 
 
 My mother always told me, `` You need to get up. You need to go do something. Here are all these other kids, going out and getting jobs, getting girlfriends! And you just sit here, playing this... this whatever-it-is.'' 
 
 And it annoyed me. I sat through her speeches with my eyes glued to the screen, murmuring `` Uh-huh.'' and `` Okay.'' when it felt necessary. I hardly listened, but did I need to? I would vouch that I had heard the same talk hundreds, if not thousands, of times. What made this any different? Nothing, because I would have just kept sitting here even once she had finished. I did n't want to stop, and I did n't need to hear anyone else tell me to stop, either. 
 
 Fast forward a few years, and I was in college. It felt fantastic to be away from my parents, my siblings, my peers, even my neighbors. I was surrounded by amazing friends and beautiful women, all of whom were just a short walk away at any given time. I tried to forget about the stresses that burdened me at home, how everyone was always on my case for everything. I tried to focus more on what it was I needed to get done and on the fact that now, I was responsible for myself. It was refreshing, like I had just been handed a new beginning. 
 
 But I had received a call one night, somewhere around my Junior year, that brought everything I had been trying to avoid down on my head, and then some. It was my sister, who I had n't spoken to since I left, in a voice so choked up that it was difficult to even tell who was calling at first. 
 
 `` Mom's dead...'' She coughed out, in between fits of sobbing and sniffling. `` Mom's dead...!'' 
 
 I did n't know what to say. And even if I did, I would n't have been able to say it. I stood there, my cell in my hand, and I just shook. Then the tears came, and we stood there, crying together over the phone like hearing each other would counsel us somehow. The call ended not long after, and I just sat there and cried to myself. I did n't know what to think, what to say, or what to do. I just cried, hunched over my bed, and after a while, stopped. I went silent. 
 
 Over the course of several years, it was the same story told with different characters. My father had passed following a lifetime of heart problems. I had n't called him, or anyone back at home, because I wanted to be alone. I made a promise to myself that I would learn to be entirely self-sufficient, and that the stresses at home would never follow me through college. 
 
 My friends had all graduated alongside me, and although we kept in touch occasionally, it was as if fate had made it so that we would all live out our futures as far away from one another as possible. We talked every now and then and even made plans to meet up one day, but they never came into fruition. After a certain point, none of us had heard from the others again, and we all just went silent. 
 
 Sometimes, when you look at the grand scheme of things, it is n't what someone says that changes everything in your world, but the silence that will ultimately follow. When I wake up now I do n't hear the sizzling of breakfast being made, or the laughter of my peers in the dorm next door, or my neighbor Rob yelling at his dog in the early morning. I do n't hear the voice of my girlfriend telling me that she loves me, or the teacher telling us that we have show-and-tell the next morning, or my father calling out to us before he leaves for work. This turtle had stuck out its neck and traveled, but now, it was time for it to go back into its shell. 
 
 All that my world had to hear now was silence.
