Quiet

Tonight, Aura dreamed she was floating among the stars. And learned something the universe is too quiet to say.

Tonight Aura learned something she didn't know was learnable: there are places where sound cannot live.
In space, there is no air. And without air, sound has nothing to travel through. A scream, a whisper, a wave hello, all of it would simply not exist. The vacuum eats it.
Astronauts on the International Space Station can talk to each other only because they are inside a sealed cabin full of air. The moment they step outside on a spacewalk, their voices reach each other only through radios. The space between them is silent.
Movies are wrong about this. Explosions in space make no sound. Lasers in space make no sound. The whole universe is, in a way, a quiet place.
But here on Earth, every breath is loud. Every footstep is loud. Mummy whispering at the bedside is the warmest sound in the universe.
Tonight Aura dreamed somewhere very, very quiet.
Then she came home.