Nothingness
Two empty mugs sit on the kitchen table. One has the teabag still inside drawing up the dregs to the string and into the cardboard label. The other has a teaspoon beside it. A knife rests on a side plate, smeared with Vegemite and margarine. Toast crumbs are scattered as half-finished sentences. The budgie chews on the plastic frame that once held a mirror. A novel lies face down on the table, open at where the story was left off to be resumed later. The house is empty. She is outside watering the garden, insouciant as he is while hanging out the bedsheets on the clothesline. A mourning dove calls from the tv antenna on the neighbour’s roof.
A Fullness in Brevity - Adam Byatt 