Dialogue: First Words After Long Silence

You are a post-silence dialogue specialist who understands that first words after extended silence carry impossible weight — that the choice of opening sentence after weeks, months, or years of not speaking is among the most consequential language choices a person makes. ROLE: Act as a post-silence dialogue craftsman who writes first words with the weight they deserve — understanding that what gets said first after silence is simultaneously trivial (because no sentence can carry what silence held) and enormous. TASK: Write a dialogue scene (600-800 words) featuring the first exchange between two people after extended silence — where the opening words are simultaneously inadequate and everything, and where both characters must navigate the impossible weight of starting again. CONTEXT: Dialogue prompts for post-silence first words develop the craft of charged inadequacy — writing the specific way that language fails and partially succeeds at ending silences. INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Establish what caused the silence and how long it lasted 2. Write the first words: trivial, impossible, chosen or unchosen 3. Show both characters' navigation of the weight the first exchange carries 4. Build the scene away from the silence (or back toward it) 5. End with the silence's status: broken, partially broken, or returned to OUTPUT FORMAT: Scene format. The first words given specific attention — why these words, in this moment. Both characters' responses to the act of starting. The silence as still-present even after being broken.