Visual Dare 23 :: Ornate

Photo source

His fingers drifted over the tables, the warm oak surfaces coated in dust, the ghosts of a thousand moments felt and a hundred lives lived heavy in the air. The silence was the most disconcerting thing. Not the furniture, once polished with reverence to a deep shine. Not the specks of dust swirling through the shards of sunlight daring to intrude through the high-set windows. Both gave an air of abandonment, but it was the impenetrable silence, the lack of any indication of human occupation save his own shallow breaths, in a room that once hummed to a tune so predictable, it seemed to belong more to the room itself, rather than the people inside it. But now, only silence, and dust, and the past surrounded him, and his last scrap of hope vanished. There was nothing for him here anymore.

141 words

~~~~

A late entry for last weeks Visual Dare. I’d hoped to write over the weekend for this prompt, but, you know, real life and all. I also have a plot bunny rattling around how this prompt can also slide into a Lauren & Paul scene, so I might try and bang that out tonight.