The Silence of the Second Plate

Dear Delyara, It is 2:15 AM, and I am sitting at the kitchen table eating a cold sandwich straight off the chopping board because putting it on a plate feels like too much effort for a man who lives alone. The silence in this flat is a physical entity; it sits in the corner of the room, heavy and unmoving, watching me chew. I haven't heard the sound of my own voice since yesterday afternoon when I said "thank you" to the bus driver. This chronic, structural loneliness is a slow-acting poison that completely erodes your social confidence. You start to feel like an island that has drifted so far from the mainland that no ships remember the route anymore. I look at my phone, scrolling through contacts of people I used to know in London, but the distance feels too vast to cross with a text. I am completely stranded within these four walls, and the quiet is deafening.