There are multiple ways of interacting with silence: purposefully leaving something unsaid, breaking the silence around a topic, or, quite simply, getting tongue-tied. For this week’s challenge, we want you to take the theme of silence and explore it in your own way.

The studio is empty, but then it is not: you are everywhere, in the books on the shelves, the records on the low table, near the sofa. You are on the keys of this keyboard, in the scent of you in the bathroom, in our bed, on my clothes. On my lips.

You are not far, you are here. Standing on the balcony, breathing in the icy air of Kreuzberg, there is no sound: snow covers the pavement, the streets. The city is silent, the pregnant pre-dawn silence, before the birds recognise the new day.

I come in, shut the door. I sense the little wave which travels from there, the corner of the desk where our secret lies, murmuring sweet and terrible truths: loving a ghost has its price, and being loved by her – by you – a higher price still.

How I love this city. How I love our silent place, full of you, full of us, overflowing with pleasures that have no names. And memories. I take your wooden face in my hands, its surface feels warm, like a skin. Those deep eyes seize me, as if to confirm your presence, but I know. I know it is your way of reassuring me, of telling me that I have already payed the price, of your love.

This is the start of a new day. Surrounded by you, I take the steps for what must follow: getting showered, getting dressed, making coffee, starting work. All the time, your eyes follow me, and so comes the inspiration: how not to tell the story, of a writer in love with his muse?