short fiction · 2026-10-08

The Quiet Listener

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

In the kitchen, morning light pooled on the linoleum. The kettle hummed, then fell silent. A single drop fell from the faucet, striking the sink with a soft plink that seemed to linger. Mara paused, her spoon halfway to her lips, and let the silence settle—not as emptiness, but as a presence that gathered the faint creak of the floorboard beneath her bare foot, the distant hum of the refrigerator, the faint tick of the wall clock. In that quiet, she heard the day begin.