There are signs around my building claiming 'triathlon in progress'. In spite of their assertion, there is no such event taking place. It has since passed, though the signs remain.

I check regardless. I look around me, expecting to see numbered competitors all around, swimming, running and cycling with singular purpose. Instead it's just an oft-empty walkway winding up a steep hill.

A silence surrounds the irrelevant signs. I see them and think someone should be clapping their hands, blowing whistles and getting people lined up on a starting line, or ushering casual walkers, like myself, out of the way.

If there's a breeze, the signs flap in it, and as I climb the the hill and walk into town I think about the quiet, and words that lose their meaning with the passage of time.