The silence was always the loudest part of his life. Each morning, he would sit in the same stained chair, sip the same tepid tea, while the stale smoke flavoured air barraged his nostrils and morosely watched as the world continued without him. The concrete jungle outside his window throbbed with life: car horns, shouting vendors, flashing lights, and the sharp barks of dogs, but none of it touched him. Forgotten, he remained untouched, a ghost behind glass. Penniless, isolated , and shackled to addiction, his days bled into nights; he gambled away what little he had, not in pursuit of wealth, but of a bleak hope. Still, nothing ever changed. Until the envelope arrived. It was an off-white rectangle, unusually crisp against the damp post . Inside an aged umber coloured letter, an invitation to a place he had never heard of alongside a cluster of photographs which he could only describe to be the gates of paradise. "Congratulations," it read, "You are the winner of the Heavens Home Lottery. One house. One island. All yours." At first, he laughed; cruel jokes were not foreign to him. But when he called the number shaking hands clutching the receiver the rusted voice of a robotic recipient on the other end confirmed everything. Arrangements were made. No money was needed. Just him. Days later, he found himself on a creaking boat heading towards the horizon, wind slicing through his thin jacket as the sea shimmered with secrets of the aching relief he had been seeking all his melancholy life . When he arrived, the island was more than paradise: it was untouched, unspoiled, almost unreal. The house rose like a mirage of comfort, its bright radiant gleaming light , stocked shelves, and gleaming glass that blinked on at his presence. Like a rope Nature enveloped him: whispering trees, still lakes, skies that blushed at sunset. For a while cradled in the arms of a comforting solitude, he was content. Months later… he began to sense that something was wrong. Despite the beauty, the island pulsed with an unsettling, unnerving and ever growing silence. No birds sang. No waves crashed. The air was too still, the house too perfect and even the sunlight seemed rehearsed, too golden, too luminous. He tried to ignore it, immersing himself in luxuries, routines, the illusion of peace but each day, the unease grew exponentially like a colossal malevolent tower looming over his fragile mind . His thoughts became louder; memories of the city, of laughter, of voices and of life haunted him like ghosts. Slowly, he became silenced by stillness and suffocated by solitude. Eventually, he could bear it no more. Driven by an ache for connection, he returned to the boat moored at the island’s edge, the only link to the world he had left behind. The sea welcomed him once more, this time calmer, quieter. He expected the skyline, the honking of horns, the buzz and warmth of humanity. But as the mainland came into view, something was wrong. No smoke curled from chimneys. Roads were bare. No lights, no movement, just stillness. He stepped ashore, calling out; his voice echoed with no reply. Shops open but empty; newspapers fluttered across abandoned streets . He wandered and ran through the silence, panic rising like a tide. Where had they gone? Why was he alone? Had time passed differently on that island, or had the world moved on without him? He collapsed on the pavement where his flat used to be, breath ragged, hands trembling, drowning in the realisation that paradise had cost him reality and now all that was left was the stale scenery which stood still like a broken silent clock. The silence once again the loudest part of his life.