‘I have nothing to say’.

     She stood in the bathroom, contemplating the new space where the old dryer had been. A liberating feeling. There would now be an opportunity to appreciate the room in its altered mode. The jade wall paper on the ceiling, with its rows of delicate dragon flies outlined in gold, made her reflect on other, more distant landscapes. As she lay in the bath, her eyes followed each mythic creature, intent in its instant.

     The few drops of camomile and sweet marjoram she had put in the water gradually eased an ache in her back, a residual drag in her right shoulder. Self denial that age made us more fragile, more susceptible to those actions one took for granted, slowly dissipated. Bathing was luxurious.

     She asked herself whether creating a more minimal environment around her by reducing the physical detritus piece by piece, vacuum packed, swept into the corners, would create a vacuum inside her. Containing the necessary until needed. Observing the outside, reducing the noise. Listening in stillness.

     Paring down.

     Was this attention to the ‘spare’ programmed into our biology when we reached a certain point, like the way her brain clicked as soon as the temperature reached 32 degrees? Triggering order, or disorder, switching on the next phase. She had always considered herself fortunate to have had the opportunity of experiencing extraordinary moments in her life, some more desirable than others, but her curiosity had allowed that.

     Like shedding skins, each one became an echo of the other against a new tune playing out, some harder to slough than others. Even the top notes could frequently elicit a lump in the throat, tears.

     There are no words left sometimes these days. She directed her thoughts towards the dragon flies, their skeletal forms outlined in gold.

     Would she elect muteness in time?  The page now opened onto a blank canvas, she, an obscure dot in the middle.

     The cool of late afternoon and a soft breeze persuaded her to step out of the tub. An act of purpose into the new she decided, as she wrapped the towel around her, leaning to secure the errant plug around a tap.

     She imagined the timelessness of child hood.

     Used that moment to breathe slowly, resisted a desire to sleep.

     Would she find the words again if she elected muteness?  If she did would her voice be a frayed shadow of itself, lacking the ability to express coherently and with variety? Unable to alter pitch, only approximating the note intermittently through the mucus of neglect.

     Neglect, there was a word. She must not neglect, voiced the word again until it was just a sound in her head. The process of neglect created feckless mess and decay which travelled like mycelia, quite the opposite of her desire to make minimal or simplify. Another word to heed, because ‘simple’ needed imagination and was a thing only won over time. Many faceted yet appearing as effortless as the stretch of a cat’s paw.

     Where would the voices gather at the end? Would their choirs resonate into infinity, echoes caught in stasis, unable to alter pattern or pitch? 

     She preferred to imagine them as bright stars, vibrant in the last black.

     Someone had said, ‘once, words were magic’.