duration: until the door· place: a hall at night· surrounds: an expected step
this is not a silence you are in. it is a silence you are inside of, and forward of — the silence ahead of a thing about to arrive. a child not yet home. a kettle that should have clicked. an answer that promised itself. you have leaned your whole house toward it.
the silence one listens for has a texture not found in others: it is alert. it is full of plans. every small sound is held up against it, weighed, returned. the radiator. the neighbour's footstep. the floorboard you yourself caused. each of these the silence catches and inspects and lets pass as not the one.
the silence ends when the listened-for arrives, and the relief is out of proportion to the event, because what has ended is not the waiting but the leaning. if the listened-for does not come, the silence does not end — it converts, slowly, into vigil, which is a different posture and a longer one.