The Listener

By Peter Bowden



He first noticed it in ordinary moments, standing in a grocery aisle, rinsing a coffee cup, tying his shoes, when time seemed to clear its throat behind him. The Listener didn’t arrive as panic but as a quiet certainty: this ends. It followed him gently, whispering while he watched a child sleep or stared at the ceiling at night, imagining not pain or violence but the unbearable idea of absence, the unfinished sentences, the rooms left standing, the laughter that would have nowhere to land.

Morning always returned, indifferent and faithful. Light crossed the floor. Birds argued about nothing. The world continued without asking for permission, and in that steady rhythm the fear lost some of its grip. He noticed it grew sharper when life felt rushed and thin, but softened when he lingered, over a warm mug, a familiar story, a moment given his full attention. The Listener, he realized, was not tracking death itself but measuring how deeply he had entered the day.

In time, he understood the fear as a question rather than a threat: Did you show up? Did you love anything enough to miss it someday? The Listener was the shadow cast by meaning, proof that something mattered enough to be grieved in advance. It would return, as it always did, but now he let it sit beside him, no longer an enemy, just a reminder to hold this fragile, temporary life with both hands while it was still warm.

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