short fiction · 2026-10-18

The Weight of Absence

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

I walked through the empty hallway and felt the weight of absence settle like a stone on my shoulders, cold and unyielding. The silence hummed with echoes of footsteps that never returned, each one a faint imprint in the air, shaping the shape of what could have been. In quiet moments the stillness itself grew heavy, a blanket woven from unspoken words draped over my mind, slowing my pulse. I trace the outlines of faces I never met, feeling their warmth as if they lingered just beyond the veil, then dissolve into the void that remains. Even in this emptiness there is a strange tenderness — an awareness that what is missing defines the contours of what exists, a silent partner in the dance of presence.