**The Weight of Air**
No one would have guessed at first glance that anything was wrong with Edward. Tall, lean, with precise movements, he seemed like a man who had life under control. His clothes were always immaculate: a dark overcoat, pressed shirts, shoes polished to a mirror shine. Every morning followed the same routine: coffee from a small café in the heart of Manchester, a nod to the barista who knew his order by heart, then a jog along the River Irwell, where he passed the same elderly man in a worn flat cap, plodding through his own slow run. Then came work at the architecture firm, where he drafted building plans with such precision it was as if he were constructing an unbreakable fortress—no cracks, no weak points. Everything was perfect. Except for one thing.
Each morning, his chest tightened as if someone had laid a cold granite boulder over it. Not pain—just a weight that made it hard to breathe deeply. Not physical, but something deeper, as if the air itself were laced with lead, dissolving unnamed dread. The world around him stayed the same: the same streets, the same faces, the same rhythm. But beneath the mundanity lurked something oppressive, as though each day repeated not by choice but by force, a momentum he couldn’t escape. Edward had learned to stay silent about it. “Just tired,” he told himself, avoiding his own reflection. Or, when pressed, “the weather.” Easier than digging for the truth. He wasn’t sure what that truth was. Or maybe he was afraid to find out.
At work, he was respected. Deadlines were never missed, blueprints submitted flawlessly. If a client disliked something, Edward redid them without complaint, without expression. No arguments, no resistance. He erased and started again with the same icy precision. Silence was his shield. Silence meant control. He’d learned that rule too young. When loud words were followed by his father’s heavy footsteps and the suffocating hush behind his mother’s bedroom door. When he learned to cough soundlessly, to vanish without a trace. That habit—dissolving, leaving no mark—had seeped into him like the musty smell of an old house. Nearly permanent.
One evening, walking home through damp streets, he noticed an old woman struggling with her front door. She hunched over, shaking hands fumbling with the key, as if her fingers obeyed some unseen tremor. Edward recognized her—Margaret Abbott, the pensioner from the ground floor. She hadn’t been around lately, as if she’d faded into the building’s fabric. He approached, offered help quietly. She handed him the keys without a word, her gaze hollow—but in that emptiness was a flicker of childlike vulnerability, like a startled little girl. Something inside him trembled. Her silence screamed louder than any words.
Her flat smelled of antiseptic and dried flowers, the air thick like a room where time had stalled. He guided her to an armchair, careful not to grip too tightly, and turned to leave when she whispered, staring at the floor:
“Do you keep your lights on at night?”
A strange, almost absurd question—but it cut like a blade. Edward didn’t answer. Couldn’t. He left, but the next morning, staring into the mirror, he truly saw his eyes for the first time. Not tired. Not sad. Empty. As if nothing remained but the reflection.
He set off for work, but halfway there, he veered off. Boarded a bus going nowhere, watching grey buildings, wet pavement, strangers’ faces blur past. In the city’s noise—scattered conversations, tire hisses, the clang of trams—he suddenly remembered his father. How he’d stare at the wall for hours, waiting for it to speak. How his mother moved through the kitchen with a smile brittle as winter frost. How the house held silence—not comfortable, but ringing, like the hush before a storm. Young Edward had decided that was just how life worked. Don’t make noise. Don’t disturb. Don’t be seen. Don’t *be*.
He stepped off at an unfamiliar stop, wandered aimlessly. Rain had left puddles, pedestrians dodged under umbrellas. He walked until he stopped outside a building he recognized. A hospital. The mental health clinic. Years ago, they’d brought his mother here. He was fourteen. No one explained why. “Nerves,” they’d said. He hadn’t asked. Brought her tangerines in a paper bag; she’d stared through him like glass, never touching them. Back then, he swore it wouldn’t happen to him. He’d be stronger. Invisible to pain.
He walked into reception. The sharp scent of disinfectant hit him, the silence taut as a wire. He scanned the signs, then said aloud for the first time in his life:
“I need help.”
No shouting. No tears. Just words, steady as a drafted line. But inside, something cracked, like old ice giving way, and for the first time in years, he drew a deeper breath.
Two months later, he returned to work. Same walls, same colleagues, same vending-machine coffee. But something was different. Now he stayed late not to hide in work, but because he *wanted* to perfect a design. He listened to music again—not as background noise, but closing his eyes, relearning how to feel. Adopted a cat—ginger, shameless, who slept on his blueprints and woke him with a cold nose nudge. Sometimes he visited Margaret Abbott, just for tea, to talk about old films or books they’d both loved in younger days. She smiled more now, warmth cutting through the cold.
The weight didn’t vanish. But it grew lighter. Or maybe he grew stronger. Or maybe he’d learned to live with it—part of himself, not a burden to carry. It didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was this: he was no longer silence. A life flickered in him—quiet, but real.
He was himself.
