Her void - The guy with sketchbooks

May 1 • Entries

Song of the post: https://open.spotify.com/track/0GiMNDMpPq0o43oPP5Xhuc?si=ea39de35a4434a2b

Substack post: https://open.substack.com/pub/rudaiba/p/her-void?r=47zbbv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

She presses the final key, holds the silence like it's something fragile.

For a moment, she pretends the applause that never comes is waiting just beyond the library walls. But it never does. It’s always just the soft creak of her own breath in an empty corner of the world. She closes the piano lid like it’s a coffin.

She opens her eyes.

Still here.

Still her.

She smiles on her way out, nodding at the librarian with all the grace they expect from her.

"She’s so kind."

"She’s so elegant."

"She’s everything I wish I was."

Their voices float behind her like perfume—heavy, sickly, not meant for her to inhale. She walks and her shoes make no sound. Her laugh makes no echo. She is a performance piece. A perfect script recited on loop.

Inside?

Nothing.

Not pain, not joy. Just static. Just… blank. A hollow statue carved by others, polished by expectations, placed gently on a pedestal no one dares question. Even she doesn’t question it anymore—not really. She plays, she smiles, she moves like a painting on display. Her words about “passion” taste like chalk.

But inside?

There's nothing.

She studies because it’s all she was told she was good for.

She plays because the silence afterward reminds her she’s still alone.

She wins because otherwise… she might hear the emptiness louder.

She looks at her own reflection in the polished piano lid, if she’s even real.

And with a bitter smirk only she can see, she whispers—

“I am… a true void.”

25 comments