She lost a garden today. 

The void. The barren land. The toxic dust.

Though one might argue that the loss of Eden is an inevitable cost (or cause?) of the birth of a new world, it did not make the remorse more bearable. 

Shelves. Shelved. Had that not been an option? She felt as though she had made a mistake. At least it’s quiet now, she told herself. Dead quiet. 

Proximity. Intimacy. They develop roots only at night. Only in the dark. Only silently. Only secretly. Surprising, therefore, not unlike the vast barrenness that prevailed after everything was lost, but before anything could be born. It could take seven days, she overheard. What she did not know was that the number “7” was an abstract symbol randomly picked to give a definitive name to something infinite. She also didn’t know that even emptiness could deepen. Not like roots. No. Like cancers.

And so she kept an empty room. Delusional, one might claim, but she insisted that the room was occupied. It’s packed, in fact, she would say. Densely packed. Packed with regrets.