When the World Goes Quiet

by Gian Sardar

There is nothing worse than silence, in a moment after. Ask a woman who’s just given birth. Ask a father who saw a wagon tip and is running, calling out names. Ask a daughter whose mother didn’t make it into the shelter, because of her. Silence screams loudest of all.

Sometimes fault is also like a wind. It slips into cracks and fills spaces.

“Almost inside means outside. And after curfew?” Is it wrong

A bullet kills at the end of the war the same way it does at the start.”

Coletta and August, parents she wasn’t born with but knew she would die for.

For now, though, for now she holds it in and indulges in art by looking at what’s on the walls around her—or what’s hidden inside the walls.

Isn’t it wonderful, when what someone perceives is even better than what’s there? The painting was a promise: Your world doesn’t need to be the one others see.