There is a sound in a house when it’s occupants have left for the day and it isn’t silence.
It’s more of a dull collective hum of electrical appliances enjoying the chance to indulge their expression without the need to shout over humans.
There is the echo of words whispered in soft tones and the violent ones exchanged in heated debate, also the screams and laughter and the bark of dogs.
There is the sound of unfolded washing, waiting patiently to be transitioned from unkempt mess to organised functionality in a drawer or cupboard.
Their sound before such a transformation is heavy and unlovable, but once the task of folding is completed, they fall silent, thankful to have reached their destiny this week before their new cycle of destruction of order begins.
Toys, where does one start with the sound of toys in the absence of playmates. Their sound is dependent on how loved they are and how much time they have left before they, like a wife after 20 years of marriage, are replaced by the upgraded model, the new and better version.
But it’s the breakfast things, the things left on the table, half eaten toast and a mauled boiled egg that have the most sound.
It’s the sound of a dwindling life force struggling against its fate to be recycled in the compost, like us.
That sound is a deafening silent scream of a resistance to endings, an inevitable journey back into nothing.