short fiction · 2026-10-15

Cartography of Quiet

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

In the kitchen, the refrigerator's hum becomes a low tide, marking the edges of absence. I trace the spaces between footsteps on linoleum, each pause a contour where silence pools. The clock's tick is a meridian, dividing morning from the unspoken. I press my ear to the wall and hear the faint vibration of a neighbor's television, a foreign signal leaking into my domestic grid. Mapping this quiet, I find not emptiness but a topography of breaths held, of dishes waiting, of light that lingers after the bulb has gone dark. Every silent room is a chart of what is felt but not said.