One thing was for sure: Once she put on the sancta, her life got a lot less stressful.
Like when she was grabbing a drink at the bar after work.
“Hey! What’s wrong with this stinking bar? There’s a hair in my food!” shouted a drunk in one of the far seats. His voice was grating.
Layla turned to look at him. A member of the staff was rushing up, bowing and saying, “I’m so sorry, sir!”
“You better make me a new meal, or ______”
The man’s voice was excised from Layla’s world.
Layla smacked her lips over the delicious food, the bar just a little bit more peaceful than before.
Then there were the times when she would be walking through town once some playboy type tried to pick her up. “Hey, girl. You free right now?” he would ask. And once again the sancta came in handy.
“Aw, don’t ignore me. All I want is a little ______”
The moment she thought about how grating such a man’s voice was, she would cease to hear it.
The more silence embraced her, the more Layla realized how her world until now had heaved with things she hadn’t needed and hadn’t wanted to hear.
On her way home one day, Carredura accosted her. “Well, well. You’re looking better since I saw you a few days ago.”
Layla smiled at her. “Thank you. With your help, I’m very happy indeed now.”
“That’s wonderful. Nothing brings me more pleasure than my customers’ satisfaction.” She let her eyes drift toward Layla’s ears. “Would you like to take the earrings off?”
They were difficult to remove, Carredura had told her when she bought them; only Carredura could do it. That was their supposed demerit.
Layla shook her head. “No way. I could practically live the rest of my life with these things on.”
“Oh, I see.”
Well, Carredura advised her, if she changed her mind, she should simply pray to the business card. Then, smiling, the antiques dealer vanished into the darkness of an alleyway.
It happened a few days later.
“Layla? How’s that job coming? They said they left it to you.”
“Wha?” She gave her boss a funny look. She’d done all the work she’d personally been asked to do. Every bit of it. She knew she always did a thorough, complete job—so now she searched her memory, but she couldn’t recall being asked for anything.
Her boss gave her just as funny a look and pointed to her male coworker. “I thought he asked you to get together the presentation materials for that client. You don’t remember?”
Him. A senior colleague who was forever talking about going out to drink, and never actually doing his work.
Then Layla remembered. A few days before, he’d started chatting with her in a tone she considered much too familiar. She’d assumed he was just asking her out for drinks again and ignored him. But…
“____________”
Now that she thought about it, she realized she hadn’t actually heard him. Apparently, he had been asking her to do a job.
“I’m so sorry, sir. I’ll do it right away,” she said.
“Sure thing, thanks.”
Layla gave a contrite bow and went back to work.
“____________”
“____________”
“____________”
From a distance, she could see her coworkers laughing. Taking the chance to get their shots in at her, no doubt.
Not that she cared what they said about her. She couldn’t hear them anyway. She gave them her usual disinterested look and got to work. She had dropped the ball, but that could be rectified by doing the job, and doing it right.
At length Layla handed the materials to her boss—a bit late, perhaps, but perfect as always.
“Hmm,” he said, looking at them. “I guess this will do this time.” He looked strangely…unimpressed.
He set the papers down on his desk, but then he looked up at Layla and sighed. There seemed to be more he wanted to get off his chest. “Layla, what’s happening with you? You used to be a much harder worker, but now ____________”
Suddenly, she didn’t hear his voice. She hadn’t wished for it, not really—but she had reflexively thought of her boss’s voice as so much noise, just like the voices of her coworkers.
“__________,” he said, but she didn’t hear him.
She looked around and realized she couldn’t hear anything at all.
She’d gotten the earrings in order to enable her to do her work smoothly, but now…
The looks everyone was giving Layla as she stood there ensconced in her silence were just like the ones she had given all these incompetent fools before.
What should she do? She had to do something. At this rate, she would be completely incapacitated.
Layla had left work early, and now she was wandering around the twilit city.
The earrings were supposed to make everything better. Her work had been the one thing she was good at! She didn’t want to think that it was the sancta that had turned everything upside down. She didn’t want to admit it. She had to do something about this. Panic drove her on in a rush.
“Welcome, welcome! My shop has the finest ____________”
The voice of one of the street stall owners, which normally never bothered her, seemed impossibly loud—and so it cut off.
“Hey, did you hear? You never going to believe this! ____________”
“Ha-ha-ha! That’s so gr________”
She went by a couple of chatting girls, but it was so obnoxious the way they were talking—and they were cut off.
“Hey, miss, are you all right? You don’t look so g________”
Shut up.
“Oop! Careful, now. Gotta watch where you’re going, or ________”
Shut up!
Why wouldn’t everyone just shut up?!
The thought went through her mind before she knew what she was thinking—just once, and no more. It was instinctive; she was lashing out.
But she had thought it, and the earrings were faithful. They removed from Layla’s hearing everything that antagonized her.
“____________”
Voices disappeared from the city.
Sound disappeared.
The hubbub of town, the footsteps on the pavement—Layla ceased to hear any of it.
“____________”
She couldn’t even hear her own voice.
As she had hoped, as she had wished, Layla was left with only silence.
If you change your mind, just pray to the business card.
She was in a true crisis now.
In the middle of the night, the town quiet and still, Layla remembered what Carredura had said. She scrambled to grab the business card out of her bag, then collapsed on the roadside and prayed.
All alone on the night-darkened streets, she prayed.
Yes, she had wanted quietude. But now, unable to hear even the slightest sound, how was she supposed to carry on her daily life? She had to take these earrings off; it was the only way.
Please come quick! she prayed with all her might.
Layla didn’t really understand what kind of effect the sancta that was this business card possessed. Whatever it was, though, Carredura answered her prayer.
“____________”
Suddenly, she was there, amid the silence, smiling pleasantly.
“Is something the matter?” Carredura asked the pale woman she found on the nighttime streets. “You don’t look so good.” She knew the woman; she’d sold her the Earrings of Silence a week or so earlier. “You summoned me. That means you must want something with me.”
What might it be?
Carredura liked to think of herself as ready and eager to grant any wish her customers might have. She stood and smiled down at the woman in a way she hoped would reassure her.
Layla’s mouth worked open and closed; desperately, she formed words. “III…ahh…I wahnt to…tayyke ohv th’…airings!”
“Excuse me?” Carredura gave her a puzzled look. She liked to think of herself as ready and eager to grant any wish her customers might have—but they had to be able to tell her clearly what that wish was. Whereas Carredura was quite unable to understand what Layla was saying as she crouched there before her.
Was she saying she wanted to do something with the earrings?
“Could you say that again, please? More clearly? I couldn’t quite catch that.” She tried to look especially perplexed.
As she waited, however, she only grew more baffled. Could Layla not understand what she was saying? The other woman gave her an equally bewildered look and made no attempt to answer Carredura’s question.
And here Carredura was so eager to grant her wish, if only Layla would tell her what it was! But there were minimum conditions to be met when making an exchange—and if she didn’t know what someone wanted, she couldn’t give it to them.
Instead, she plucked the business card from Layla’s hands, and with that same pleasant smile on her face, she said, “I’m terribly sorry. I simply don’t know what you’re trying to say.”