The boy who sold silence


Urban Fable | The Boy Who Sold Silence

By Faraz Parvez
Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal
Former Faculty Member, Umm Al Qura University, Makkah, KSA
(Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal)

🔇 “Silence is louder than truth… but only when you know how to listen.”

In the concrete labyrinth of Karachi's Saddar district, where every honk, hawker, and heartbeat collided into noise, a strange boy set up a stall on the footpath.

He sold silence.

Not earplugs. Not headphones. Not quotes printed on mugs.

Just silence.

In sealed jars.

What Did He Sell, Really?

Each glass jar had a label:

  • “The silence of a mother after her child’s lie.”
  • “The silence between two lovers after the last fight.”
  • “The silence in a mosque before Fajr.”
  • “The silence of a judge after declaring the innocent guilty.”

Customers didn’t speak when they picked a jar. They just paid. And listened.

How Did It Work?

When opened in private, each jar filled the room with a kind of silence that spoke.

Some heard:

  • Regret.
  • Peace.
  • Grief.
  • Truth they’d buried deep.

One woman fainted after opening “The silence before a suicide note is written.”

A journalist wept opening “The silence in a jail where no one remembers your name.”

Why Did People Come?

Because in a world addicted to noise, silence had become rare.

Precious.

And frightening.

Who Was the Boy?

No one knew his name.
He never aged.
Never blinked.
Some said he was deaf.
Others said he was a memory someone forgot to forget.

All we know is that the silence he sold changed people.

The Last Jar

One day, he placed a new jar on the table.

No label.

A blind man came, touched it, and smiled.

He didn’t buy it. Just whispered, “This one is mine.”

The boy nodded.

That evening, the boy vanished. So did all the jars.

And for one hour, the entire city fell silent.

No rickshaws.
No shouting.
No phones.
Just one deep, aching silence.

ðŸ’Ą Moral of the Tale:

We don’t suffer from a lack of answers.
We suffer from a lack of listening.

Silence is not the absence of sound—it is the presence of something deeper than words.

In every moment of silence, the universe is speaking.
But we’re too busy scrolling.

ðŸŠķ Urban fables are our mirrors—crafted in story, shaped in shadow.
They remind us what we forgot.

Read more only at:
👉 farazparvez1.blogspot.com

Every fable is a whisper. Are you listening?


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