Monday, November 06, 2017

Examination

Close your eyes and listen.
Listen to the howling South-Easter,
to the trees clapping and clacking.
Inside,
all is quiet.
Tick, tock, tick, tock.
A closing door, echoing,
echoing down deserted corridors.
Dust motes twirling in
the liquid warmth of sunbeams
in whistling drafts
from ill-fitting windows.
An occasional cough, or sniff.
The rustling of a turned page.

One could be forgiven
for not expecting
the 1000-strong crush of humanity
filling these spaces.
Their silence
no testimony
to the power and energy
throbbing inside 1000 bodies.

Listen closer now.
Lub dub, lub dub, lub dub.
Listen to the adrenalin:
The click, click, click of pens
The quiet rip
of teeth on nails, lips, cheeks
The crack, crack, crack of knuckles
The snap of too-tightly wound hair
The pluck, pluck of fingers on fabric
The tap, tap, tap of shoelaces on faux leather
as feet twitch, twitch, twitch.

The ocean of quiet
shattered
by the tsunami of speech.
"You may begin."
And a sudden frantic scrabbling
for the anchor of pens.
It is time.

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