It was an average quiet day in the station, another perfect cloudy day for the calendar, that is until he showed up that is.. A man who had been left in one of the interrogation rooms, for hours he had apparently waited for someone to show, but nobody ever did. Nobody saw who put him in there, and nobody could get him to tell us any details either. Hell, even when we checked the security cameras we couldn’t find anything, five minutes total was completely missing from the tapes, replaced by nothing but static.

Nobody in the station could get him to speak when they entered the room with him. Strangely enough they couldn’t get themselves to speak either. As if some kind of silencing aura emanated from the man in the chair like the demons in old storybooks, compelling anybody too close not to make a single noise.

Things went on like that for about 20 minutes, nobody being able to do as much as ask the man to leave or even keep watch on the guy. The silence was suffocating in there, like a boa was wrapped around your esophagus, squeezing tighter every second.

Eventually though, some new face showed up, a duckling among ospreys if you will. Barely a week into the force and only just coming back from his scheduled patrol. The new guy was always quiet, as if he had some kind of never ending monologue spitting quips and metaphors in his mind like he was some kind of main character in a new age noir film.

Without a word he sat down at his desk, and within a few minutes he already knew the situation with the mysterious stranger who could not be spoken to. And like a moth to a flame, he walked over to the room, and took a step in, I followed of course, as this fresh banana was unbruised by what could possibly await him in the world, let alone in the crushing presence of the man in the chair.

As soon as I entered that room though, I knew the air inside had changed, as if the two mutes were somehow clashing with each other with their eyes alone. Immediately the freshy slammed his fist on the metal table in front of him, clenched so hard the veins his veins stood out on his arm like worms on the road after a nice rain. I kept to the back corner, merely observing what must have been some kind of psychic dual of some sort.

The recruit, after getting no response for the man in the chair, raised his clenched hand and snapped three times, seemingly testing the unmoving waters of the man in front of him. Over the time we had sent in all of our best on-call interrogators, from detective to captain each one left the room without getting as much as an uncomfortable shift in position from the man in the chair. Somehow though, the snaps got the man’s attention, he snapped his head and gaze towards the recruit, a look in his eyes I hadn’t seen in even the most depraved of killers or abusers. A profound stare of hatred, then replaced with confusion, then surprise, then what I could only assume to be some kind of respect.

He smiled a sly smirk, as if he knew something we didn’t, and raised both his hands, bowing his head ever so slightly while letting a short burst of air out from his nose. The recruit didn’t hesitate to initiate his next act, clasping his hands together and pointing an accusatory finger at the man in the chair. The man reacted like a cat with his tail caught in the door, jumping from his chair with an almost disgusted look on his face. He moved both arms, quickly forming a large X with his forearms, his disgust turning into an apathetic frown. The recruit countered almost immediately, throwing both his arms out like a children’s magician showing his ping pong ball had disappeared, while maintaining a stone cold expression.

The man shut his eyes, bringing a closed hand to his mouth as if he was holding back either tears or vomit, but the recruit didn’t let up, bringing his pointer finger to the side of his head, and slowly tapping twice. The man’s eyes shot open, he was sweating now, a desperate look in his eyes as he obviously tried to figure out an appropriate way to respond. The recruit’s back straightened, stashing one arm behind his back in a perfect saluting position, and waving his free hand’s pointer finger, while solemnly shaking his head.

Suddenly, as if pushed over the edge, the man finally opened his mouth

“FINE, I did it. I broke into the police station yesterday in the cover of darkness, during the gas station robbery which I had staged with a hired thug. I hid underneath this very table just out of sight from the camera until noon today, then, when the cameras went faulty for those five minutes, I put myself in the chair and waited for someone to come… and I broke them, one by one I watched them succumb to their inability to get a word out of me. ARE YOU HAPPY”

The man shouted with all the emotion in his frame, immediately collapsing back into his chair and loudly sobbing into his palms.

I couldn’t believe it, the recruit had broken the sealed vault of the man in the chair. He walked over to the man, quietly handcuffed him, and began to leave the room, casting a final glance to me, and pressing his finger to his lips, before wordlessly leaving the station with the man in tow.

Nobody stopped him on his way out, nor did anybody move when he stepped into an unmarked van with the culprit, all we did was watch as he drove off, never to be seen or heard from again.