There is a black obelisk that Rose without warning. Ominous, absolute, and indifferent. Quaintly called 'the silent treatment,' It was erected without consent Like a monolith from an ancient, merciless cosmos. Its surface offers nothing. No handhold and no reflection, No light and no warmth. You circle it day in and day out. You try to speak to it. You implore, but it gives nothing. This is not absence. It is a presence. A deliberate, destructive dark energy. Its purpose is t