Listening to the Dark

By Peter Bowden


She sat at the kitchen table long after the clock struck midnight, her fingers curled tight around a cold cup of coffee. The house hummed with its own small sounds—the tick of the refrigerator, the sigh of pipes. She feared the silence most of all, not because it was empty, but because it was too full. In it, her thoughts rose like dark water, crowding, pressing, waiting to be heard.

When she tried to escape, she reached for the radio, a book, her phone glowing in her hand. But even then the quiet found her, seeping between the lines, speaking in the voice she could never quite hush. It reminded her of things undone, mistakes replayed, questions never answered. Thoughts turned to shadows, and shadows lengthened until they felt like hands brushing the back of her neck.

Still, some nights she wondered if there might be beauty hidden inside the fear. If, buried in that restless tide, there could be a small lantern of truth, waiting to be lifted and carried. She told herself that one day she would sit in the silence without flinching, and let her thoughts speak without running from them. Until then, she held her cup, listened to the hum of the house, and tried not to drown.

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