15. Silence

The room was chill, the rather ornate fireplace dead and cold. Ornate furniture from a more formal time was placed to the best advantage. She sat in one of these chairs, her eyes the only movement as she took in the details of a room so obviously neglected for so long.

There should be more light surely. Those huge windows were designed to let in glorious bursts of dancing sunlight not the grey mists that drifted inexorably across the lawns towards her. From her chair her eyes wandered over the heavy tapestry curtains that framed each of the three windows. If her hands were to touch them, carress them would they disintegrate? They looked too solid, too real and yet she knew that even the most solid of things can cease to exist. Would she feel the weight, the tiredness of the years if she were to reach out and touch? She sat motionless. The walls and carpet, she supposed were once beautiful, but now they all but whimpered in shame at the level of dullness they helped to create. Greyness and a quiet yet invasive coldness that crept like an unwelcome thought in an already dark mind, were dominant in this supposedly civilised atmosphere.

And that clock! A regular metronome would have been calming, lulling, hypnotising, choose your adjective, but this clock couldn’t be that obliging. An atmosphere already strained was exacerbated by an uneven tick tock tick, tick tock tick. Had someone purposely changed the tempo to produce the maximum of irritation and discomfort? Undoubtedly that was so for nothing could be so wearing on the nerves as an uneven beat in the still, almost silence. Tick tock tick, tick tock tick. Grey and dead, grey and dead.

The shadows lengthened as she sat still and calm, no desire to move as there was nowhere to go. Silence was here but it was a calm, waiting silence. Peaceful in a lifeless, somewhat neglected way.