beechnut1969
The Other Side of Stillness
She stood half within herself—one face drawn into thought, the other cast upon the glass. Between them, a thin plane of reflection held what words could not: the pause between motion and meaning, the quiet fracture between being and appearing.
The street behind her moved with its usual purpose—cold air, hurrying feet, a city indifferent to the inward turn. Yet here, time seemed to slow. The cigarette burned like a clock, each exhale dissolving into breath and light. Her reflection looked away, as if unwilling to meet her own gaze.
Perhaps we all live with such doubling—the self the world receives, and the one that lingers just behind the surface. The one that speaks, and the one that listens. We learn to carry both: the calm mask and the restless truth, the smoke that rises and the silence that remains.
In that fleeting stillness, she was both solid and spectral—present yet retreating, grounded yet elsewhere. The other side of stillness is not motion but recognition: that even in our quietest moments, we are never wholly alone.
The Other Side of Stillness
She stood half within herself—one face drawn into thought, the other cast upon the glass. Between them, a thin plane of reflection held what words could not: the pause between motion and meaning, the quiet fracture between being and appearing.
The street behind her moved with its usual purpose—cold air, hurrying feet, a city indifferent to the inward turn. Yet here, time seemed to slow. The cigarette burned like a clock, each exhale dissolving into breath and light. Her reflection looked away, as if unwilling to meet her own gaze.
Perhaps we all live with such doubling—the self the world receives, and the one that lingers just behind the surface. The one that speaks, and the one that listens. We learn to carry both: the calm mask and the restless truth, the smoke that rises and the silence that remains.
In that fleeting stillness, she was both solid and spectral—present yet retreating, grounded yet elsewhere. The other side of stillness is not motion but recognition: that even in our quietest moments, we are never wholly alone.