Separated by Silence

Here at the edge of our lives, we stand to watch the days go by, waiting for that time when it all seems to fall into place around us, but there are times when it all seems to be too far away to touch, times when none of it matters.

Those hard words remain between us, still, solid as unmoveable as stones set hard in this landscape by lost forces from an ice age ago. We cannot shift these stones, and you lean back against one to feel the last of the sun’s fading heat on your face.

Out here, there are not many words. Silence is what grows here, around us.

Look out across this landscape spread out before us. There is nothing. These hillsides are bare and you can see far off into the distance to the point where seeing is lost.

Eventually, we turn and walk away, separated by this silence that has grown up between us, and turned us to face away from each other as we walk.

I have been here before, and I know how slowly the darkness can fall, so slowly, so subtly that it seems hardly to change at all and you are surprised not by the suddenness of it, but by how it grew so dark around you without you ever really noticing.