Silence chugs on noiselessly, eternally like a well-oiled secret.

Pervasive. Invasive. Persistant.

Lingering on to speak, listen, sigh, whisper and feed on the chatter of hope.

Silence, rising like smoke, stinging nostrils and eyelids of the soul..

As we watch empty years that passed without eyes locked across the checkered table cloth.

Without words that were to gush into parched hollows like monsoon rivulets and bring us to life again.

We live wordlessly. We live.

In silence, we fade..leaving behind a residual ache.

A longing without a face.

Life sorts itself out, things settles down, eyes look squarely at the  world.

Hunger becomes a memory, pain recedes like a tide.

Only this remains..this niggle of a question. Or two.

“Is there a real person behind this silence?”

“Will he answer the door if I knock with hope smeared knuckles?”

But mostly,  just silence without words like wine.

A soul summer. Songs that flower. Sudden spring showers.

Without hands that reach out for life. Without windows in the heart.

Without breeze in the breath.

Without the one who stays on after all is over and everyone is gone.

Reema Moudgil is the author of Perfect Eight. (http://www.flipkart.com/perfect-eight-reema-moudgil-book-9380032870) . More on Story Wallahs. Other books by Unboxed Writers in our Store.