Editor's note: Ninad Bhat's "Patience" took second place in the Synapse Storytelling Contest creative writing, poetry category.
The room is encased in silence
Threads of conversation untwined for a moment
As we all remain motionless, waiting for
Someone, something, some next act in
Our play stuck in intermission between
The opening of a drawer, revealing
Chekhov’s gun and the inevitable
Unwieldy discharge of a bullet of new activity
Shattering this dispassionate moment of
Calm. In the midst of the flow of my surroundings, I
Find myself suddenly aware that it is not
The world that has halted but my own
Set of atoms, puzzle pieces held frozen in
Place. I notice now that the untwining was
Not the spoken words and brittle actions
Of those around me but my own concept
Frustrated, stuck, intangible and inaccessible in
My own vault of quiet stupor.
