His desk sat in the corner of the room, light and cluttered. A contrast to the rest of the apartment. His need for the transcripts wasn’t pressing enough, the material not interesting enough, to hold his attention. To distract him from the quiet pressing in on the room. So, the brief for his motion sat half-typed, the depositions remained half-read, and the radio played softly in the background.
He felt like he was chasing water, running after thoughts and emotions that had indistinct forms and scattered quicker than he could think or feel them. They flowed in different directions, leaving him stranded in their wake.
Easing his hip onto a stool, he sighed into the dark. He had learned this: life plotted its course like a meandering river. Sediment and erosion altered its path slowly until one day, when he looked back, its shape was so different from when it had started. People washed away, places were left behind. He had learned at an early age that people don’t stay. They were swept away by the tides, carried elsewhere until they were only a memory and no amount of searching could bring them back.
He raised the bottle to his lips and grimaced at the cold glass and the thought of drinking alone in the dark. He sighed again and poured the beer down the drain.
Chair wheels squeaked as he straightened his desk. With a click, the radio stopped. Another twist and the lamplight disappeared. The mostly dark room let light from the hallway seep beneath the door. It outlined it with fine lines and delicate filaments. The quiet settled like a thick blanket over the room. Noises, big and small, seemed to amplify in the dark, until the ticking of a clock filled the space and the refrigerator’s hum roared like a jet’s engine. He didn’t realize how quiet it would be. How empty the light beneath his door would look without giggling shadows to interrupt its smooth flow.