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By Emilia Dunn

Guest Columnist

Have you ever wanted to say something so bad that it was best just not to say anything at all? Sometimes, silence is a better answer than anything; in any case, that could be, staying silent. Why is it so hard for some people to remain silent?

Instead of screaming, shouting, and sobbing in an argument, you’d better just keep your lips sealed. Although I am an argumentative person, silence is a better response than any other alternative.

Yelling is easy: fathers yell, mothers yell, teachers yell, children yell; the world never seems to be able to obtain a steady silence. I love silence, and if it could be silent all the time, I would never complain about anything ever again.

I wish men knew how to choose silence. They never quite know social cues. Sometimes, I wish I knew how to choose silence; I get so frustrated looking back at times that I’ve screamed at people out of anger. How could I break the sound barrier instead of leaving it be?

When seasons change and snow falls, I feel surrounded by silence, and I haven’t yet decided if the silence is comforting or eerie. With no loudness of rain on a tin roof during a spring thunderstorm or the blaring summer heat beaming down on me, I feel at peace. I feel like myself in silence, I feel like myself in winter because it is silent.

I’m not so sure why people prefer loudness over quiet. I feel like I would die if I were around loudness all the time. I would have a heart attack and croak over and that would be my end. Emilia Taylor Dunn dead at 16. Cause of death — excessive noise.

Wittiness aside, I doubt I could ever actually survive a world with no silence.

The day I live alone is the day I first get to breathe. I will finally get to be surrounded by silence and solitude. I have never wanted something more, it feels like a reward — like Dairy Queen ice cream after winning a T-Ball game when you were five years old. That’s the kind of looking forward I have right now.

I wish other people appreciated the quiet like I do. I know some do, but it really doesn’t feel like it in high school.