(in)still

This space, barren, quivers in the vast nothingness that has penetrated it. Unspoken words linger afloat in the cavity that trails untraced from there to nowhere. Miniscule crumbs left sprawled across the coffee table. Drapes hung low and depressed in the parched summer humidity, with seams tattered and undone. The floor creaks with patience for the foot that never sets foot upon it. Windows left ajar, wide and welcoming to the forgotten beyond. Paint cracked and peeling across walls stained with the mute passing of time, withered and pasty accumulating along the edges of the room, like termite-ridden dusting, sans the termites. For, even they have left abandoned this place. The leather sofa sits idly in a corner, askew from the line of the antique Persian rug beneath it, its upholstery frayed with a dullness whose cause is suspect. A broken floor lamp slumps with its wiring exposed, and its shades torn and discolored  A heel-less stiletto boot here, a discarded iPhone there; trinkets and follies without ownership and purpose.

There was a time when this was the epicenter of happenings. The sociopetal fulcrum of dialectics. This used to be the home of many, the melting pot of voices. Varied, distinct, uncompromising voices. Now it lays in the silence of oblivion. Falling into disarray, becoming obsolescent in the changing climate of social media, of shorter and fickler attention spans, and shallow, crass, soulless content. What used to be a kaleidoscopic space, chromatically psychedelic, is now geige and muted. In the absence of its voices, it has become blunt and still.

I miss the cacophony of conversation, the hoi polloi of discourse, the unabashed wanton over-sharing  I miss the brilliance of anonymous writers, and the comfort of writing explored in its most raw, unedited, no-holds-barred incarnations. A space that used to be instilled with the spirit of freedom of speech, now lies still in the absence of use.

Original image from here.