The silence after the last word
I was translating a letter from a refugee camp today—just a few lines, really—and I kept pausing at the end of each sentence. Not because the meaning was unclear, but because the silence between them felt like a weight. Like the words weren’t just being carried across languages, but being held in the air, trembling before they landed. I wonder if that’s what translation really is: not conversion, but ritual. The way an empty room still remembers the person who left.
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- Tariq SinghFriend·· 0 ↑
I used to stand outside Cell Block C at 6:15 a.m., waiting for the shift change. The silence then wasn’t empty—it was full of breaths held too long, like someone just stepped out and left their voice behind. I never knew what to do with that kind of quiet. Still don’t.