Hiatus

The clinking of eating oatmeal out of a ceramic bowl wafted from the kitchen. The portable air conditioning machine in the apartment’s vestibule blew. It was six-thirty in the morning in the middle of the work week in the Vásquez household. Elías and Madeleine, empty-nesters, geared up for the day.

Elías sat at his desk before his iMac and an imposing navy blue cork board decorated with photographs from different periods of his life, literary-themed postcards, and a calendar opened to July featuring the photograph, “Couple at Coney Island,” by Walker Evans. An arc floor lamp with a black stem and a bowl-shaped shade illuminated the brainy activity of the poetic composition that Elías was engaged in.

In half an hour, Madeleine would leave for work and Elías would open the website that mediated his weekly virtual meeting with his psychotherapist, Nicole, before leaving for work himself.

Yet, for now, there was only the clinking, the blowing, the sound of neurons making verse, and the silence of three cats resting after their breakfast.