Emptiness is unacceptable to us. Presented with an empty space, we will do whatever we can conceive to inject consciousness into it. If not a living being then personification of an inanimate object. Stillness terrifies us, that is a basic facet of being a human being. Stillness, to us, means death and peace. An uncanny peace preluded by a catastrophe. Here we go again. Even stillness must have been preceded by a living incident. Can stillness exist completely on its own without a history?
Clandestine in the midnight lull, dust fell upon the floor of the room in the second floor. Through the spaces in the wooden planks of the floor, filtered in a filament of light from the room below. Light music, discernibly a slow piano track, hummed its way into the otherwise unoccupied space. A pile of boxes in a corner was accompanied by a portrait by its side. The portrait was of a man on a horse. He carried a gun and wore a hat as a pompous accessory to a princely garb. It seemed as if the horse was looking longingly at the grass below to graze, while the man was by no means a seasoned rider, perched precariously on the horse and eager to get off. The spontaneity of all the reactions in the frame made it seem more like a photograph than a portrait, yet the faded water colours beneath the film of dust undoubtedly seemed to have originated from the brushstrokes of an artist. Instead, one would even think of the portrait as a deliberate farce by the artist intended to besmirch the man. That could be an explanation of why such an otherwise masterfully painted portrait would be stowed away in a room that no one ever enters.
It must be wonderful to sit in the solace of this space and gaze out of the large window at the adjacent wall from the portrait. A chintz chair, covered with dust and cobwebs, sat facing the window as if someone would have sat there and gazed into the farm yard outside. Instead, only the bright light of the moon peered inside offering a view to a non-existent onlooker. The moonlight shone on the chair illuminating its ornate armrests, the remnants of the gold augmentations reflected in the dappled white light. Hidden from all this brilliance was a chest that was kept right below the window where the light could not reach. Its metal exteriors were rusted while its contents never unfolded to this generation of life.
Hushed conversations from the room below broke the lull. Only one voice could be heard speaking, giggling and whispering amidst a silence when it was listening. Probably a telephone call in the middle of the night. We must never pry upon conversations blossoming this late at night. Embarrassment might flood upon the victim and a blooming romance might be interrupted. Silence, when deliberate, is a powerful enabler or disabler. When it is involuntary, it spells gloom. As beings that communicate through speech, we are compelled to think that we are only powerful when we speak. The truth is far from it. Rather, words can expose or cut as sharp as they can uplift or embolden. At times, an intention or a message can be conveyed far deeper through silence. A show of strength, solidarity, understanding, even collective defiance can march through walls and keeps through silence. It is never the same as doing nothing. It is deliberate. Hence, as deliberately this room has been kept silent, likewise, we will neither interfere the gentle conversation below nor pry upon it.
Music continues to fill the space but its gets drowned in this room in the excess of inanimation. Instead, it is the light that moves, the dust that dances, and the portrait that grimaces at its artist’s ruse. Such is the predicament of the rom that has a chest unattended, unnoticed. A cupboard at the side from which we are looking that appears as a mere boxy silhouette, and a door that has remained closed for an eternity, an exaggeration for the sake of narrative.
As the moonlight shifts ever so slightly, the music stops, the whispers continue for a while before diminishing into the night. From the floor below, light gives way to darkness and we are all submerged into the non-negotiable stillness of the night, a time to recuperate and dream.
Ink Idle 
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