As i walked into the house last night, i was greeted by an engulfing darkness. My housemate wasn't home yet. Switching on all the lights didn't seem to help much; all it did was cast an eerie glow, lighting up dark corners, reinforcing the emptiness of it all. Its a big place, this house i live in -- big enough to echo my footsteps as i walked down the hall.
I tried to be organized. Clothes off, first, sarong on. Second, put perishable food i had bought into the fridge, took out food i was going to cook for dinner. Opened up a can of mushroom soup, put it to boil. Chucked in a couple of slices of buttered bread into the toaster oven. While everything cooked, i sliced up some fruit, blended it into a smoothie with some milk and yogurt.
I was in a microcosm of life, i realized, at that very moment. The silence around me was deafening. Where was the voice of my wife, telling me how her day had been, or complaining about how i never pick up the clothes after me. Where was the pitter patter of young feet, my children, running up to me, yelling, "Daddy, daddy!", screaming for that newest toy. There would be no dinner table conversation, not tonight as i sipped my soup in front of the insanely blaring television. There would be no bedtime stories for my son and daughter, no bedroom cuddle with a wife as we hold each other to sleep.
There was just me, silent, the whirring blades of the blender in the foreground, the pitiful stirring of the soup in the back.
