Obscured III

Whatever was here has already left. The ranked black bars hold their formation across the cream, which carries them now and carries nothing else at all. Orange surfaces in flecks. It is the only saturated note anywhere. The covering has outlasted the thing it covered and settled into a composition in its own right, which is a stranger fate than being hidden, and a more permanent one. Concealment continued long after there was nobody left to conceal, and it kept every one of its habits exactly as they were.

Quiet of that kind has nothing to do with softness. What it does to a space is closer to authority than to calm.