Silence
Unnerving silence.
The house is quiet this morning. No whining dogs. No banging trashcans. No voices drifting over the back fence. It’s eerily quiet really, the kind of silence that would propel a sci-fi-minded writer into the realms of zombie apocalypse.
Tree branches are shifting in a soft breeze, but I can’t hear the wind. Even the birds are silent, huddled in their nests, resting, waiting. Normally, I can hear trucks on the highway, the squeal of brakes; the bell ringing first period from the school up the road. This morning, there is nothing but silence under a grey sky that stretches as far as the eye can see. No blue. No clouds. Just grey.
The world feels muffled, cut off from the normal creak of its axis. As I write, there are no cars whizzing by my window, no walkers, no joggers, no one.
Silence.
Unnerving silence.
It’s time to begin again, to write a new story, to create a new life. It’s time to fill the silence with song.
Cave Dweller: Alone in a Social World 