Things Are Quiet

By Peter Bowden

The house was quiet now. The mornings came and went like old friends who had grown tired of the visit. He would sit at the kitchen table with his hands around a coffee cup that had long gone cold, staring at the empty chair across from him. The ache was not loud, nor did it rage. It sat in his chest like a stone sunk to the riverbed, unmoved by the current of passing days. He thought about the way she would hum softly while drying the dishes, the sound slipping through the cracks of his memory like sunlight through a dusty window. He missed her without ceremony, without grand displays. It was a dull, persistent throb that never asked for attention but never left him alone.

Sometimes he would walk the old path down to the river, where they once threw crumbs to the ducks and talked about small things that seemed bigger then. The air was thick with the scent of pine, and he could hear the water moving over the rocks, just as it always had. It made him angry sometimes—how the world did not seem to notice her absence. How the river still flowed, the birds still called out at dusk, and how time moved forward without care for the breaking of a heart. He would kick at the stones on the trail and curse under his breath, hating the cruelty of it. He wanted the world to feel it too, the hollow, brutal quiet that had settled into his bones.

At night, he would sit by the window with a glass of whiskey and watch the sky fade into darkness. He remembered how she would touch his shoulder when the day had been too much, her fingers light and warm like she knew how to pull the weariness from him. Now his shoulders bore the weight alone. He would close his eyes and let the memories come—not because he wanted them, but because they came regardless. They were ghosts that slipped into the room and settled around him, whispering of old laughter and soft words. He would drink to them, to her, and to the years that had come and gone too fast. When sleep finally took him, it was never gentle, and he dreamed of her as she was—alive, kind, and far too good for this world.

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