Tweet
The test of silence
published: Thursday | August 23, 2007
Melville Cooke
The silence began just after midnight on Monday. The all-seeing single eye of Hurricane Dean, from which tears of frustration at not making landfall flowed copiously, had locked its baleful gaze on parts of Jamaica west of Kingston. In the capital, strangely enough, there is the post-hurricane deluge of 'did not yet live up to expectations'; and I was disappointed that the rerun of the backyard post-'Ivan' 'rain bath' I looked forward to would not happen.
Next time, because with Jamaica's position in the accustomed hurricane track, there will always be a next time.
Instead there was the gentlest of breezes, hardly enough to rustle the leaves and irreconcilable with the wall of wind which had hammered at the hedge only hours earlier, bending the tidy thicket into an erratic Mexican wave which cheered on tree limbs falling to the power of 'Dean'. There was also something else coming in through the open window, something that was at first hard to discern with unaccustomed ears.
Sound of silence
It was, as Simon and Garfunkel celebrated in song, the sound of silence.
Not only was there no electricity, but the buzz of distant generators had not yet begun and the enquiring low rev of slowly moving cars, filled with rubberneckers celebrating their fortune through assessing the damage 'Dean' did to others, had not yet begun. The giggle of water in the temporary stream the street had become had subsided; there were no voices and no intermittent sirens to signal blood, gunpowder, fire or cardiac arrest, and the dogs, still inside or shaking off a fury for which they had had no warning, did not bark.
Even battery-operated radios were silenced, as if their owners needed respite from reports of mayhem, and there were no voices as persons slept after nervous roof-watching, or were quiet in the wake of their benevolent God's handiwork.
Letting it register
We do not realise how little silence we have until, if only just for enough time for it to register, it shrouds us. Even in the night there is always a sound; the hum of the refrigerator, the hiss as a tap is turned on, the whirr of a fan, the low volume of a radio or television, the throb of a distant (or not-so-distant) sound-system, the slam of a car door as late night workers or party people return home. And there is always the sense of sight, to compensate for the lower input into the sense of sound; the glow of the light on a television or radio, the comfort of a nearby streetlight, the knife of the refrigerator light slicing into the darkness of a kitchen.
Not then, just after midnight on Monday.
It was a silence I am familiar with and welcomed, having spent most of my childhood in a home without public electricity supply and isolated from neighbours. However, it was a silence that I believe many would have found testing and even after that deepest of silences was broken, there is still the mute of the television and large radio that those without generators are facing.
It is a test of how comfortable we are with our families and ourselves, the difficulty of which many a testy adult with enquiring children who need mental stimulation will attest to.
Each other's company
It should be a part of marriage counselling, actually. Two persons who believe wholeheartedly that they are ready to commit to each other until death do us part should be sent to a place where there is no electricity or radio with a battery, so they have no television to watch together instead of looking at each other, no radio station to tune into instead of being attuned to each other. Leave them there for a few days and see if they really, really enjoy each other's company. See if cabin fever sets in. See if they rub each other the wrong way, despite fantasies of rubbing each other the right way when they are all alone.
And I am sure that there is many a single person who will find their own company, without cable television, DVD, X Box, Internet connection and high fidelity stereo system, inadequate. And maddening, even.
Of course, the best option (which should be first choice, anyway) is reading. But that, too, is fraught with silence, save for the rustle of pages, the same silence that many try to escape in the first place.
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer. Responses welcome at thursdaycolumns@yahoo.com.
published: Thursday | August 23, 2007
Melville Cooke
The silence began just after midnight on Monday. The all-seeing single eye of Hurricane Dean, from which tears of frustration at not making landfall flowed copiously, had locked its baleful gaze on parts of Jamaica west of Kingston. In the capital, strangely enough, there is the post-hurricane deluge of 'did not yet live up to expectations'; and I was disappointed that the rerun of the backyard post-'Ivan' 'rain bath' I looked forward to would not happen.
Next time, because with Jamaica's position in the accustomed hurricane track, there will always be a next time.
Instead there was the gentlest of breezes, hardly enough to rustle the leaves and irreconcilable with the wall of wind which had hammered at the hedge only hours earlier, bending the tidy thicket into an erratic Mexican wave which cheered on tree limbs falling to the power of 'Dean'. There was also something else coming in through the open window, something that was at first hard to discern with unaccustomed ears.
Sound of silence
It was, as Simon and Garfunkel celebrated in song, the sound of silence.
Not only was there no electricity, but the buzz of distant generators had not yet begun and the enquiring low rev of slowly moving cars, filled with rubberneckers celebrating their fortune through assessing the damage 'Dean' did to others, had not yet begun. The giggle of water in the temporary stream the street had become had subsided; there were no voices and no intermittent sirens to signal blood, gunpowder, fire or cardiac arrest, and the dogs, still inside or shaking off a fury for which they had had no warning, did not bark.
Even battery-operated radios were silenced, as if their owners needed respite from reports of mayhem, and there were no voices as persons slept after nervous roof-watching, or were quiet in the wake of their benevolent God's handiwork.
Letting it register
We do not realise how little silence we have until, if only just for enough time for it to register, it shrouds us. Even in the night there is always a sound; the hum of the refrigerator, the hiss as a tap is turned on, the whirr of a fan, the low volume of a radio or television, the throb of a distant (or not-so-distant) sound-system, the slam of a car door as late night workers or party people return home. And there is always the sense of sight, to compensate for the lower input into the sense of sound; the glow of the light on a television or radio, the comfort of a nearby streetlight, the knife of the refrigerator light slicing into the darkness of a kitchen.
Not then, just after midnight on Monday.
It was a silence I am familiar with and welcomed, having spent most of my childhood in a home without public electricity supply and isolated from neighbours. However, it was a silence that I believe many would have found testing and even after that deepest of silences was broken, there is still the mute of the television and large radio that those without generators are facing.
It is a test of how comfortable we are with our families and ourselves, the difficulty of which many a testy adult with enquiring children who need mental stimulation will attest to.
Each other's company
It should be a part of marriage counselling, actually. Two persons who believe wholeheartedly that they are ready to commit to each other until death do us part should be sent to a place where there is no electricity or radio with a battery, so they have no television to watch together instead of looking at each other, no radio station to tune into instead of being attuned to each other. Leave them there for a few days and see if they really, really enjoy each other's company. See if cabin fever sets in. See if they rub each other the wrong way, despite fantasies of rubbing each other the right way when they are all alone.
And I am sure that there is many a single person who will find their own company, without cable television, DVD, X Box, Internet connection and high fidelity stereo system, inadequate. And maddening, even.
Of course, the best option (which should be first choice, anyway) is reading. But that, too, is fraught with silence, save for the rustle of pages, the same silence that many try to escape in the first place.
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer. Responses welcome at thursdaycolumns@yahoo.com.
Comment