UNTITLED

The orchid is slender and white. It is fluted, with a small offspring of long, tapered petals. They expand with the subtle and complex beauty of a frozen star. No one cares about this orchid, because it is a dying flower. The blossom that is visible now will vanish within several days, and the silky petals will have wilted away. Its green stem is pale, and it disappears into the tall white vase in which the flower stands.

A vase is chosen by the tasteful buyer to suit the flower that it will hold. The decision should be made with cool consideration and an keen discernment because a vase is the living flower’s coffin. Inside this edifice, the flower will slowly waste away. The vase and the flower must complement one another beautifully. Perhaps beauty will obscure the fact that the centerpiece is nothing but a tiny monument to ruin.

This vase sits on a black table in a white room by a window so clear that it does not exist. Sunlight cuts the silence in the room with a harsh consistency, etching out perfection on the carpet. Two black bookcases disturb the perfect stillness of the room’s bare walls, guarding the doorway that leads into the hall.

Atmosphere must be tangible in order to be perceived. This is dead space, filled with the flat air of an abandoned museum, but dwindling life circulates through the slowing veins of the dying flower. This is the heartbeat of the world, the pulse of a dead vegetable. Life means nothing, and silence is a creature of infinite patience.