Cry Silence: A Platform And A Reckoning

A late train leaves a stranger with time to kill at a small-town station, where a casual argument about sound takes an unexpected turn. Sitting nearby is Bill Meyers, a massive, silent farmer who may be deaf. Then the station agent explains why some people in town believe Meyers can hear perfectly well—and why they believe two people died because of it.

Fredric Brown builds Cry Silence almost entirely through conversation. There is no courtroom, confession, or detective piecing together clues. Instead, one angry man tells a story while the accused sits only feet away, apparently unable to hear a word. The stranger listening soon realizes there may be one small way to tell whether Meyers is truly deaf.

Fredric Brown published hundreds of short stories across science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and crime during a career that stretched from the 1930s into the 1960s. His fiction appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, Weird Tales, Galaxy Science Fiction, and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. He was equally accomplished at novel length, with books including The Fabulous Clipjoint, winner of the 1948 Edgar Award for Best First Novel, What Mad Universe, Martians, Go Home, and The Lights in the Sky Are Stars. Cry Silence shows Brown working in one of his strongest forms: a compact story where a few ordinary details gradually reveal that something is terribly wrong.