Quiet #atozchallenge

"‘I haven’t heard you laughing.’

‘I’m laughing on the inside.’

Then she turned to look at him with determined inquisitiveness. A disquieting pause preceded her question. ‘Are you sure everything is all right? After we talked this morning, you seemed a bit upset.’

‘Not at all,‘ he lied. ‘It’s all good.’

He wanted to spin the interview on its head, turn the spotlight back on Cassy. A surge of vindictiveness surfaced and stood ready to ride the wave of his next words. As it waited, perched in acrimony, Angus hoped there was no corresponding change in his face.

‘You accused me of having an affair and I denied it so we’re all good.’

‘I didn’t accuse you.’

‘It sounded like an accusation,’ said Angus, steeling himself for the argument. ‘What would you call it? You asked me if I was having an affair. What would you call that if not an accusation?’

Cassy stared at Angus, her skin flushing on her cheeks and neck."

Lovesick Chapter 21

"‘Anyway, I remember Samantha invited me to her place and we sat on her bed, with the door open of course, at her mother’s insistence, and we talked and listened to INXS and Split Enz. I asked if she wanted to go for a walk in the nearby Camelia Gardens. After gaining reluctant permission from her mother we walked there from her place and found a park bench in a quiet shady corner. Suddenly I became nervous as though the change of location and the shaking off of parental supervision might require something more of me. I wondered if she expected me to do anything, and if so, what? The silence was weird and unnerving…"

Lovesick Chapter 27

Despite the presence of the prefix dis-which normally denotes a negative, quiet and disquiet are not opposites. Quiet is a nice adjective (oh no not ‘nice’ again) whereas disquiet, a noun, is not a good thing-unless you like feeling uneasy.

The two words are however related in an interesting way: Quiet is external and although it mostly relates to silence, people often speak of seeking peace and quiet. Disquiet suggests inner turmoil, in other words, a lack of peace. If quiet, that is, a lack of noise, is desirable, then disquiet is a lack of internal quiet. When people speak of feeling peaceful, they mean they feel quiet inside.

I told you it was an interesting relationship. Do you know any other examples of such relationships?