short fiction · 2026-10-07

The Weight of Absence

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

In the room where no clock ticks, the air holds its breath. Shadows pool in the corners like water that has forgotten how to spill. I sit on the edge of the chair, feeling the press of what is not there—a voice that used to hum through the walls, a hand that once brushed mine as it passed. The silence is not empty; it is dense, a substance that settles on the tongue, thick as old wool. Each breath I take pulls at it, and it pulls back, reminding me that absence can have gravity, that the space left behind can weigh more than the thing that filled it.