duration: half an hour· place: any door opened too early· surrounds: a still-dripping world
the storm passes; the world is loud no longer but not yet quiet. this is not the silence after noise — there is no such thing — it is the silence specific to aftermath. things drip. a gate creaks once. a branch comes down two streets over and you hear it as clearly as if your own roof had spoken. the village is taking stock without speaking, because speaking would be premature.
it is the silence of a deferred noise: every roof has water on it that will eventually fall; every wire has the wind's recent handprint on it; every animal is listening for a second wave that may not come. you are listening too. you do not know what for. the world has been rearranged in the dark and you are reading the new copy.
this silence ends when the first ordinary noise resumes — a car, a radio, a kettle, your neighbour's footstep on the path. then the village remembers it has things to do, and the silence becomes the work of mending, which has its own sound.