Still Night - Aryetta Rees (intellectual books to read TXT) 📗

There is a constant hum, A never ending tone, an ever going heartbeat. Like lungs, there is a rise and a fall. Sometimes loud sirens swiftly race pass as the lungs fill with air, and as the lungs fall, the noise can die down to the hum of talking and taxi cabs. I think the most quiet I have ever experienced was on a subway. hardly anyone was on board and no one spoke a word to one another, but still there was the sound of the screeching breaks and the metallic whirring of the machinery, and that's just the way I like it.

        My mom used to say that children born in the city automatically become part of its heartbeat, part of its tune, part of its life, but I was different. You see I wasn't born in the city, quite the opposite really, I was born in a small… well, you can hardly even call it a town. I was born in a town with one unchanging, blinking red light. A town with one option for education, a town where you didn't have any problems with neighbors, ever. A town where silence was not at all rare, unless, that is,  you were around me. As a kid I made my presence known and everything I did could be considered loud. I talked loudly, I walked loudly, I broke things loudly, my personality was loud, the clothes I wore to school were loud, I was a loud kid and for some odd reason, in a small rural and quiet town, I never quite felt like I belonged.

        I remember when nights were silent. When my mom would try to put me to bed at 8 o'clock and I would lie in bed and stare into blackness for what felt like decades and then finally get up, turn on the lights, and play by myself, for what felt like 5 minutes. I could never pinpoint why I couldn't sleep at night, and I didn’t want to know honestly so I unknowingly locked that thought away. Finally, my life changed completly and for ever when my parents finally told me that we were moving to New York city. I however was only seven years old and had no idea what that would mean for me until we got there and I felt it.

        That city was me. When I opened the car door in the city it was the loudest noise I had ever heard. There were more people than I had ever seen, and I could feel, clear into my soul, the movements and vibrations of the city. The noise that most people back in town call racket is not racket at all but it is life, and I could feel it! I felt alive! I remember that moment when I opened the car door and stepped into the city, as the moment I found myself, but now I'm losing me all over.

        I may be overreacting, I mean, it’s only two weeks, but still, it means I will cease to be me for two weeks. I lean my head against the cool glass of the window and I am immediately grateful for the way the cold snaps through me as crisp and clear as a crack of whip, and like a whip, I allow that chill to organize my hazy thoughts neatly back in their cages. Yes, cages, you see as you know I am a loud person, my thoughts can be like animals, for most of them I leave the cage doors unlocked and they roam free, but there are a few that I keep locked up. Fierce beasts of thoughts that I honestly can’t understand myself. A fresh, crisp, wonderful scent makes me glance out the window and I involuntarily gasp with joy. City lights! Spanning all the way up the car window! we are going back! Suddenly, the happiness catches and falls clear down the pit of my stomach as I realize that what I thought to be my beautiful city lights were only raindrops catching the light of passing cars on the freeway. which makes me wonder, was I really tricked by this mirage or was I making myself see what I wanted to see. Another untamable beast for the cage.

        I look to the front of the car where I see my mom’s mouth moving, but she can't seem to speak. I see the frustration growing on her face and she starts to make large hand gestures to get her point across but this only adds to my growing confusion. I watch her roll her eyes and reach a handout toward me, she grabs hold of a black cord hanging by my side and tugs, the music playing in my ear, I suddenly realize, had become a backtrack to my thoughts that I hadn’t even realized was there, but now my ears fill with the sound of pounding rain drops on the car. The scent of the rain seems to grow with the noise.

        I listen as the rain slows to a stop just as we would in a matter of seconds. My mom told me we were almost there and I suppose it hadn’t sunk in, but it had to come, finally the car stalled and my dad turned the key.

        For the first time in as long as I can remember there was silence, complete and utter silence. My mind couldn’t wrap around the void of sound, fear gripped me like it did when I was young, but what was I afraid of? I tried to lock that thought in the cage but I couldn’t, with the fear came a loss of control. Suddenly, the beasts could rampage in my mind. It was a different fear. Something I had forgot about completely. When we moved to the city it was something I did not have to be afraid of. I am afraid of silence. It is not a fear of the lack of sound but of what that means. I was suddenly back in my old bedroom here in town. I am lying on my bed. Staring into darkness. I hear nothing. I see nothing, and worst of all I feel nothing. I feel like a black hole is swallowing me up from the inside, it's pulling away everything that is me. My stomach tightens and I jump up and slam the light switch.

        I am back in my car, but the tightness in my stomach remains, the feeling of nothing remains, the bright car lights switches on when my parents open the door, I quickly replace my headphones in my ears. Sound. Where there is sound there is something. My white pasty hand comes into view as I pull on the plastic car door handle. As the door swings open darkness immediately waits for me. Threatening to grab at my soul and hold it in a white knuckle grip. A deep breath and I step out the door. My music is the only protection from nothing.

        Suddenly, to my horror and without my consent, that one protection is ripped away and pulled out of my reach. I whip around and meet my mother's stony gaze.

        “I am confiscating these until further notice”

And just like that, I am gone. I know I will become nothing any second now. I will be pulled away from myself.  I look up and all I see is darkness, I thought there were supposed to be stars here. No. All I see is nothing, but as I watch, I begin it see them. Tiny pinpricks of light begin to grow and form in the sky. Like the reflection of the light off the raindrops they form the lights of the city. There is life. I realize that the bright light of the car temporarily darkened the stars, but they are there. They were always there, there is something there, there is no void, and what's that? I suddenly can hear the sound of crickets chirping. Trees shake and bend in the breeze, grass sways, puddles on the road ripple and splash by an unseen insect or creature. My parents’ footsteps as they walk towards the house. Sound. A whole orchestra playing a tune. The tune is different than the one the city sings but it is there all the same. I allow it to envelope me. I feel myself connect into it and I suddenly realize that my soul plays two songs, one is soothing, and calm, while the other is fast and ever moving, but they are both there and they leave no room for nothing. I am filled to the brim with sound, with sight, with life, and I have to admit, I have never felt a night so peaceful and so still.

Publication Date: 11-01-2015

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