The morning had begun the night prior. The sun had set off an array of fireworks sounding only of two birds discussing what to do when the clouds were to come. It was dark yet starless within the hour, and I rested even more soundly once the world bathed behind my eyelids. The birds had flapped their damp wings in the rain, which sounded of tears. Perhaps they could hear the warmth coming, once the gutters were merely tapping their toes to a slower beat, and thus the birds knew something I could only dare to inquire about.
And today, though the wind whispers gently, and my steps are rhythmic, much like the tap of last night’s waning shower, a mower claws away at the swaying grass. Each blade—of the mower and of the grass—is screaming out. When something destroys and when something is destroyed, do they make the same sound? Everything, for a moment, screams, and the dew on the grass moisturizes the scent of new beginnings all around. Once the work is done, all becomes quiet and still once more, but only for a short while.
In the absence of sound, even for this brief interval, I consider whether silence is, itself, what we hear when we pay no attention—when we neglect to perceive how boisterously all of nature and society assert themselves. Even in our contemplations, with a miniscule voice taking up our thoughts, such silence is nonexistent, until the point at which we forgo even our own internal dialogue and stay entirely unaware. A moment of utter silence is unalive.
Then a crying siren passes by, as an ambulance rushes through the damp street and a sole puddle, and this reminds me distinctly of the grass which was freshly mowed a moment prior. The way the silence—or rather, my indifference—is pierced is distinguishably similar. There is an amount of pain that floods someone who knows where such a noise originates from, or what type of situation would warrant this siren—the same aspect of the morning that makes me ponder if someone just down the road is having a vastly different experience than I am.
The steady day feels far less tranquil, even as the siren falls behind the trees being whipped by the wind. My feet ache, which sounds like gravel. There always seems to be some bad news just around the bend, and the ground reminds me with every thump that I am approaching its revelation.
When the siren fades totally into the abyss of the distance, secluded behind the tree line, the chaos somewhere still remains in the forefront. I wonder if, concealed by the abstraction of the siren, what is truly of concern should be if it rushes to someone in pain, someone in need. Do they scream, like the grass, and like the mower? Which one would they sympathize with—that which must fulfill its purpose, or that which suffers as a result? The clouds part above, and just as the first ray of the sun strikes my face, and the scent of the grass follows me with the mildly humid breeze, the birds awaken to this now picturesque morning, where nothing is amiss, and all the trouble around is an afterthought. Someone can be suffering a type of personal silence, as I am occupied now with fluttering birds and a resurrected sky, which is most curious.
Another car goes merrily on its way—the street sounding less misty than before—and the bushes rustle underneath my feet.
I am like a squirrel, only people will respect me more than a squirrel in most cases. I glance into the expressionless eyes of one eating an acorn, which had just made a single pop after striking the concrete from above. The squirrel nibbles and chomps rapidly—that is, until I take one more step in its direction, and it freezes to look back at me. I step on a twig, which pierces the ambience with a sharp snap, and the squirrel rushes off, kicking up small morsels of dirt in its path, reminding me of the scratching, crumbling effect of my feet dragging along the mulch when I choose not to lift them. I subsequently scurry in this manner to simulate the actions of the squirrel, and though I feel as though this is mere mockery, I hope that I can fool the sky above with what it is hearing down below. That might prove some kind of influence that I truly possess, unlike the way grass can be murdered by a necessary murderer, or a siren can indicate some inconceivable emergency.
The soles of my shoes scrape against the pavement in a similar fashion to the mulch, and the leaves of the lowest trees drip droplets of residual water to the ground, providing more evidence of the once gloomy day, which sounds wet, and therefore colorless. However, there is color all around. I am fuzzy inside, like a stuffed cow without a moo, or a pig without an oink, and it is only now that I realize I have said not one word to this morning, despite all it has offered to me, and all the volumes it has spoken. Regardless, my silence has, in fact, lent itself to much observing, so therefore it is the opposite of a natural or societal silence, which designates a listener’s apathy. In this case, my personal silence is reflective of introspection, and introspection is antithetical to apathy.
Perhaps, when someone remains silent, though perceptive, they are saying more than they otherwise could.
Time slows down to the tempo of this silence. I consider, as I reach my destination, that I may never again encounter the same set of trivial happenings in succession in this same manner. Will I remember? Above my head, two birds sing each other a lullaby, yet the sun is only now reaching its peak. I am drowsy, too, I suppose, but when I yawn, finally saying something to my surroundings, the noise is so shockingly close, after so much dissonance. I have nothing else so genuine to convey, and perhaps leaving a sentiment at a vaguely indicative tone is enough. The world is alive as I traverse through it, so the final gust of wind, definitively destroying all silence, chases not after the emergency to which a siren responds, nor a fleeing squirrel, nor my fleeting thoughts, but ahead of my path made of concrete—one not concrete at all, fraught with whatever the day decides to speak into truth.
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