Dust and Silence: A Mirror's Perspective

Why a project manager decided to write literary fiction. The power of observation in our professional lives.

Dust and Silence

I. The Twilight of Vanity

She came every evening, just before the light drained from the western window.
Always at the same hour. Always with the same pace.

The room — four and a half steps wide, ivory walls now faded — filled with orange reflections. The curtains, translucent, swelled gently with the night air, then folded back against the glass. On the shelf, a chipped vase held dry flowers that never changed. There was a scent of powder in the air, but only when the light struck just right.

She entered without sound.
Pushed the door open with two fingers. The creak came late, a breath held too long.
She sat. The wooden chair gave a brief, brittle moan.

She wore dark clothes, close-fitting. Rarely any color: wine red, midnight blue, black. The fabric shimmered faintly, like lacquered skin. She leaned close — very close. Her eyelashes blinked slow, like the wings of a dying bird.

She lit a small lamp with a frayed shade. The cracked glass cast an uneven glow across the wall.
Her face appeared on my surface like on a dark pond.

She always started with the eyes.
Drew sharp lines below, then above.
The lipstick came only after the cigarette.
Hair was last — always brushed in wide, circular strokes.
One lock slipped loose on the left. She never fixed it.

Sometimes she smiled, but thin-lipped.
Sometimes she simply stared. Too long.

Then she stood. Straightened her spine. Collected her purse.
Switched off the lamp, leaving the room in an even dusk, all faded shadows and half-shapes.

Her perfume — talc and something sweeter, sharper — hovered for just a moment.
Then it vanished.
As she did.

The silence returned, precise.
The same as before.
But more often, lately, more often than she might have known…
something lingered.

A soft imprint on the chair’s edge.
A strand of blond hair, curled like a question mark.
A dull mark on my surface, like a breath too close.

I’ve always seen her.
Every evening.
And now,
I feel her absence.

I miss her gaze —
the one that looked through me,
but never at me.

II. Morning, Fragile and Imagined

The light came before she did.
Pale, cold, dustless. It sliced through the room diagonally, catching the chipped white tiles, the rusted edge of the radiator, the frayed border of the rug.

Then the girl.
Light hair, untamed, two mismatched socks. One sleeve of her pajamas longer than the other.
She dragged a stool across the floor, pushed it hard against the vanity. Climbed up.
Her face was close. Very close.
She fogged my surface with her breath.
Laughed.

— "Hey. Are you in there?"

Her fingers touched the glass. Left a print.
She drew a heart. Then wiped it away.
She combed her hair with clumsy, fast strokes. Paused often. Studied herself.
Tucked a lock behind her ear — the same one that slipped loose every time.
Stuck her tongue between her teeth. Made a face.

— "You always watch, don’t you?"

Her mouth moved again. I couldn’t catch the words. They had no reflection.
She spun around. The hem of her nightgown lifted. She laughed again.

The backpack sat on the chair. The cup was on the table.
There was the smell of milk and biscuits.
For a moment, the room felt alive.

She stopped. Looked straight at me.
Her eyes — wide, fixed, too still.

— "I talk to you every day… but you never answer."
— "Maybe you’re shy."
— "Or maybe… maybe you’re just a mirror."

Then she stepped down from the stool.
Grabbed the backpack. Walked out.
Her reflection lingered for a breath on my surface. Then it was gone.

The light remained.
The cup was half full.
A biscuit had broken in two.
The door clicked gently shut.

III. The Body Days

In the afternoon, the boy.
Same time, every time.
He opened the door with his foot — never touched the handle.

He came in wearing a tank top or bare-chested.
Sweat glistened on his skin: across his chest, down his spine, along his temples.
He stood before me.
Breathed heavily.
Flexed his arms, examined the curve of his shoulders.
Turned sideways. Then front.
Raised his arms again, like a bird showing its wings.

He smiled. Sometimes he spoke.
To himself. To his reflection.
Never to me.

— “Bit better, yeah…”
— “Shoulders up. Chest out.”

He lifted weights. Put them down. Bent forward. Dried off with a gray towel.
Then back to me.
Checked his chest. Turned his torso.
His gaze always landed in the same place.
Never beyond it.

Once, he pressed his forehead too close — left a faint smudge.
Another time, he scratched at a speck of dust with his fingernail.
Didn’t remove it. Just shifted it slightly.

The room behind him was changing.
A dark stain in the ceiling’s corner.
A hairline crack snaking down the east wall.
A broken blind let angled shafts of light stab through the air.

He didn’t seem to notice.
Not even the noise — distant, deep — that sometimes made the walls hum.

One day, he didn’t return.
The door stayed ajar.
The weights lay untouched on the floor.
The towel, folded.
A water bottle, half full.
A damp mark, slowly fading.

IV. What No Longer Comes

The next day, no one came.
Not the woman.
Not the girl.
Not the boy.

The room waited until sunset.
The chair was empty. The stool, untouched.
The space before me — still.

The light made its usual arc across the floor, then up the far wall.
Then it disappeared.

The day after, again — no one.
The cup still sat on the table. Dry now. A faint crack along the rim.
The broken biscuit had darkened.

The backpack hadn’t moved.
The weights hadn’t shifted.

A week.
Two.
Then I stopped counting.

The cracks widened.
A line in the ceiling opened, thin at first, then deeper.
Water dripped through when it rained.
Streaks marked the walls — dark, irregular, like dried veins.

Mold appeared along the edge of my frame.
The wood swelled, then shrank, leaving small gaps along the corners.

A blind broke free.
Wind came in, bringing dust, dead leaves, torn pages.
Every day, more dust.

Sometimes, sounds.
Dull, distant.
The floor would shudder slightly.
Once, for just a second, I thought I might fall.

But I remained.

Every hour looked like the last.
Every light. Every shadow.
Every silence.

Every reflection was mine alone.
And I have no face.

V. What Remains

The sound came without warning.
A blast — not close, not far.
A deep pressure in the air, thick and metallic.
The cracked window shivered.
Then another.
Sharper.
Lower.
Then silence.
A different silence.

The north wall gave way two days later.
At dawn.
No thunder.
Just a dull, breathless snap.
The cracks split open in a single moment.
Dust burst into the room.
And the space opened.

Now I can see outside.

The sky is not the same.
It is gray, heavy, uneven.
The buildings across the street are torn open. The upper floors are gone.
Façades peeled off like burned skin.
One window dangles in the void, like a dislocated eye.
A rooftop has folded inward.
A wall has collapsed into dust.

There are no people.
No lights.
No voices.

Only debris.
Smoke.
And distance.

Inside, the cup has fallen.
The backpack lies half-buried in rubble.
The stool is broken in two.
A shard of glass has slipped from my edge — now reflecting only ceiling.
Above, a hole. The sky moves slowly beyond it.

No one enters.
No one looks.
No one reflects.

And I begin to understand.

They didn’t stop coming.
They were stopped.
By something larger.
Something final.
War.
Ending.

All those who once passed through me —
the woman, the child, the boy —
they are gone.
Not absent.
Erased.

VI. Dust and Silence

No one has reflected in me since.

No hand has touched the edge of my frame.
No eyes have searched for a face.
No lips have smiled.
No footsteps crossed the light.
No voice has whispered something worth keeping.

The walls are cracked.
The ceiling half-collapsed.
The wind enters without knocking.
Time leaves no new marks. Only repeats.

At night, darkness passes through me without weight.
By day, light passes through me without shape.

I reflect nothing now.
Only broken walls.
Only what remains.
Only dust.
Only silence.

My notes:

What this story taught me about:

- Silent observation in leadership

- The fragility of what we build

- Memory and continuity in projects

What do you observe from your professional 'mirror'?