No Words

15 Minute Write

He appreciated the irony. Meeting in central London was expected but the venue, Tadao Ando’s ‘Silence’ pretty much said it all. Had she chosen it on purpose or was this just a twisted coincidence - was he, as always, reading too much into it? However, it was true - he had not been open with her, he had not been able to express this mood that had suffocated him and, as a consequence, both of them. He was not being uncommunicative on purpose, this wasn’t some sullen petulance or mood, it was genuinely because he did not know where to start with an explanation.

They sat looking at the tranquil scene, the thin layer of water reflecting in the summer’s mid-afternoon light, textured by the leaves of the London Planes, tessellated sparkles and shadows. There was a palpable tension yet no malice, they both knew that this conversation needed to happen but neither were sure where, or how, to start.

They had managed to meet and sit with just a series of pleasantries being exchanged as a distraction: their inbound travel, the weather, a decision of where to sit, each series of words adding to the emotional bloating feeling that both felt and the need for its release.

Both were desperate for the other to start, to take the first step, utter the first real words and although they were silent outwardly, inside a frenzy of words reverberated. Who would break first? But the stress of those first few words, of knowing where to start in a non-judgemental, non-accusatorial way was proving almost impossible for both of them.

A leaf dropped from a tree above the fountain, landing on the surface - it seemed to hover, surface tension holding it nano-metres above the water where it lay at rest as if deciding where to go next. Then as a gentle breeze brought the hairs up on both of their forearms the leaf broke its friction hold and drifted, naturally elegantly, towards the edge of the fountain and them. Their eyes traced its course and as it slipped to the edge and over so they found their fingers seeking each other’s.

As their flesh connected a sound of release filled the air, a hiss, a tinnitus of relief as the fountain burst into life creating its clouds of mist that covered the water and crept slowly, like the leaf, to its edges.

And this was the trigger. The simple mechanical operation, turning to something beautiful, allowed them to release and they looked, properly, at each other for the first time in weeks.

“ I know it’s not easy, but any words are better than no words …“

Silence. Tadao Ando. Mayfair, London. 2022. Nikon d750