People have been fleeing this place for years, leaving behind broken windows and silent playgrounds.
This is what George Orwell truly envisioned in his book Nineteen Eighty-Four: a grey world without banter, silent playgrounds bereft of life.
IT IS Republic Day in Mumbai, and an elderly nun addresses 1,000 silent schoolgirls gathered in the playground of Mary Immaculate Girls Schooll.
It creeps in like a fog, not quite as visible as it once was but very much present, silent and nimble, interrupting innocent playground laughter.
The playground adjacent to the school was silent but for the sound of horn honking from from supportive drivers.
There is no rule or routine, from being silent in the corridor to lining up in the playground after lunch, that isn't painstakingly explained and re-explained to the pupils.
Did you see the ball!" Juan Diaz, Jose Delarosa, Jesus Cruz and a silent, adoring freshman girl are the only people in Garrison Playground in the Bronx, near Hostos Community College on the Grand Concourse near 148th Street.
There's a deserted playground out back which, if it existed in a Silent Hill game, would definitely be a place where a zombie child would lurch out at you.
The world has remained silent as Hamas has fired their missiles and hidden their arsenals in schools, playgrounds, hospitals, and family homes.
Many of the city's shops are still closed and the streets are mostly silent, punctuated by the occasional zip of a passing moped and the distant screech and clatter of a school playground.
