Where Silence Lives

There is a place between the last note and the ringing that follows—a breath held in the throat of a bell, unhurt by air. The silence doesn't arrive. It waits, patient as dust motes in a shaft of sun, knowing we'll stop speaking eventually. When we do, it fills the room like water, not drowning but reaching into the corners where our small noises fled and hid. It has its own music, this quiet— the blood moving through your wrist, the house settling into its bones. Most of us spend our lives running from it. Some of us finally sit down and listen to what we've been too loud to hear.