A shot in the early morning. There are no other sounds just a shot. No packs of dogs barking by, growling and yelping amongst themselves. No call to prayer wafting through the windows in the early dawn heralding the coming of day. No snoring from the neighbor downstairs. No clanking of a tractor passing by so close our building shudders. No muffled discussion between spouses upstairs. No steady clicking of a woman making rotis at four in the morning before the heat hits the kitchen. There is quiet except the shot.
I am in North Minnesota out in the country and the silence is so beautiful that it almost hurts my eardrums. It as if a million voices I recognize have been stilled by wealth. Silence is a luxury. Quiet is for the rich. Whenever you take a lot of people and shove them into a smaller space the reality will be that there will be more noise. Take the whole of the American population and stuff them all into Minnesota and perhaps life would not be so quiet. So still.
When there is always noise. The noise of people, not of trains, or cars, or machines or animals but of people of voices, of feet, of sighs, of hacking TB coughs, of people then in its absence you hear. You hear. You hear the silence.
I am in North Minnesota out in the country and the silence is so beautiful that it almost hurts my eardrums. It as if a million voices I recognize have been stilled by wealth. Silence is a luxury. Quiet is for the rich. Whenever you take a lot of people and shove them into a smaller space the reality will be that there will be more noise. Take the whole of the American population and stuff them all into Minnesota and perhaps life would not be so quiet. So still.
When there is always noise. The noise of people, not of trains, or cars, or machines or animals but of people of voices, of feet, of sighs, of hacking TB coughs, of people then in its absence you hear. You hear. You hear the silence.
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