The Silence

j.luna

The door knob turned, and the door opened revealing a dark but all too familiar room.

He reached for the switch, the all too familiar light switch on the left corner of the wall beside the door; as the lights went on he entered.
The living room was small but well furnished, the walls are wall papered and there are bookshelves filled with novels, figurines and framed pictures.

The room had always been this way since they moved in 3 years ago.
Nothing had changed except for the light bulb that got busted a year ago and was replaced by a new one, and some photographs that were added on the shelves,some taken from their anniversary vacation in Thailand.

He took off his shoes and socks and loosened his tie.
He fixed himself some coffee, and sat on his favorite La-z-boy recliner in front of the television, it had always been the same for the past 3 years.
It was 10 p.m., and he took the t.v. remote control from the small table beside the sofa.
He need'nt need to look, for he knew that it was there, so all he had to do was reach for it.
He turned on the TV.
For the past 3 years it had been his routine to watch the 10 o' clock news.

At about 10:15, he finished his coffee.

Suddenly he had the strange urge to turn off the TV.
The news of the day didn't appeal to him.

He turned off the TV..

He looked around the room, thinking of things to do
He fixed his eyes on the lampshade on the study found on the east side of the room.
He focused his stare on the Kama Sutra painting hanging on the west side of the room.
Everything had been the same for the past 3 years since they moved in.
He decided to read a novel, and approached the bookshelf.
He stared at his personal library, contemplating on what to read.
Will it be Kafka?
Will it be Dostoevsky?
Or, will it be Faulkner?
He had been too familiar with these novels and their authors, for he had read them far too many times.

While contemplating, a framed photograph caught his attention.

He stared at it.
Contemplating, studying the features of the picture.
As if in a reverie, time stopped for a moment, before something ticked inside of him and kicked him back to reality.

Suddenly, the room grew bigger...
The walls grew farther from each other.
He saw the unfamiliar dust that had settled on the now unfamiliar bookshelves, tables, furniture.... Suddenly he felt the unfamiliar discomfort of strangeness and isolation...

He felt the room transform into a huge, vast and empty hole....

The room which had been small since they moved in,suddenly morphed into a huge, vast and empty space, only an hour after his arrival.

Then the silence.....
The unfamiliar silence replacing the familiar sounds of home sweet home.

At exactly 10:45 that evening, Mr. Pimentel knelt down to reach for the cabinet beneath the bookshelf.

At 10:46, he turned a knob to open the cabinet and watched the faint, unrecognizeable reflection of his face on the smooth surface of the gun.