Darkness my friend (Part 4, No Time)

She couldn’t sleep, was tossing and turning constantly before her brain declared itself fully awake. As she began to swam out of her daze, she became aware of a song that insisted on occupying her thoughts. It had always been one of her favorites, even years after it first appeared in 1964. It persisted, glued to a scrapbook in her mind, urging her toward emotions that had changed somewhat (some) or maybe had not changed at all.

The emotions were shifting now that she’d begun to think about her motives for physical activity, sports of almost any sort. Hers: a life that had begun to obsess over being on a court, a track, an uphill hike. Because of her desire to understand her motives better, her intention to find time to engage in different activities, in different settings, she had woken up abruptly at around three in the morning, all entwined in the bedding. The song had soothed her with its well-worn melody despite its somber tone, the sense of communication gone wrong. It was familiar and was one of her favorites, but it was too insistent.

What she didn’t understand was why the song appeared to her now, as if invoked by a need yet to be defined. It wrapped around her like the covers she had scrambled so much with energetic arms and legs, as if running a marathon or playing volleyball. She was a bit frightened by the impression that the song had twisted its way into the darkness meant for sleep, but since she couldn’t sleep, she figured she might as well put the song on a loop in her head and listen to it endlessly. 

By the fifth repetition of the song-in-her-head, she was starting to comprehend. She broke it into the various verses, all of which she knew by heart, and grabbed her phone, opened the Dictate app and began to respond to the Sound of Silence, talking to it softly. Which was ironic, considering that she realized she was responding aloud to the song that was silent, except for in her mind. Silence everywhere. Accompanied by the sounds of many languages and lexicons, echoes of things said long ago.

The Sound Of Silence (Simon & Garfunkel)

Hello darkness, my old friend 

I've come to talk with you again 

Because a vision softly creeping 

Left its seeds while I was sleeping 

And the vision that was planted in my brain 

Still remains 

Within the sound of silence

She is speaking in her dictation to a familiar, friendly penumbra, but really it’s more like she’s speaking at it. It’s an odd darkness that, despite its friendliness, nevertheless creeps in, carrying a vision. Its purpose is to deliver something (vision, seeds) that the I in the song never defines. Not all seeds lead to good plants. Not all visions are saintly rapture experiences; some are nightmares or horror shows. This was her fear. What did the silence hold? She kept asking, immersed in a one-sided dialogue.

What was my vision as a girl? Did I want to be an athlete when I grew up? Or was it hope of escaping how I was forced to live? Or was I forever condemned to replay scenes I despised? Did I want to be sown like a field is sown, seeds of a vision planted in my brain, seeds able to break the silence? Run, I think with a jolt. Would having a vision help me escape what was never welcome and will always hurt? Within the deaf silence, am I in danger or is this sound with no syllables a safe haven?

Able to break my silence, able now to talk about my life, my family? Is this what I want to be?

In restless dreams I walked alone 

Narrow streets of cobblestone 

'Neath the halo of a street lamp 

I turned my collar to the cold and damp 

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light 

That split the night 

And touched the sound of silence

After she left her family, she became homeless. She walked the streets to stay awake and keep warm. Neon felt like a slap or a blow. An aggression that broke everything, cutting the night in two. And the night said nothing, felt nothing? She herself had never said anything and kept walking until walking became running, climbing, stretching. Yet the knife never went away, despite all her efforts to dispose of it. It could never make her break her silence, nevertheless.

And in the naked light I saw 

Ten thousand people, maybe more 

People talking without speaking 

People hearing without listening 

People writing songs that voices never share 

And no one dared 

Disturb the sound of silence

This reminds her of another song, one whose title and melody she cannot recall. She realizes that she is dressed (I turned my collar to the cold and damp), while the light is bare. The light is raw, must be terribly displeased with what it reveals: people who aren’t doing things people do when their worlds are right and kind. They are drowning in their own inability to use words and to hear them. Songs that remained unsung, heroes for continuing to exist even though no voice had ever found them. No voice could find them, because thousands of people feared what might happen if they said the silence had died. Manniquens, all of them. No courage, characters like the ones in 1984.

"Fools" said I 

"You do not know, silence like a cancer grows 

Hear my words that I might teach you 

Take my arms that I might reach you" 

But my words like silent raindrops fell 

And echoed 

In the wells of silence

She thinks how too often we do not speak, yet we must speak and hear.

I’m ashamed. My own lack of words created a malignant growth inside me. Now they need to emerge so I can offer them to others. Is that what I want to do? Tell them what I learned years ago, what I survived? Still, if I talk I will not spout rain, I cannot let them all fall on places and people who pay them no heed. Each syllable matters and will be taken from my mouth, then scattered, loudly. 

She is trying to explain what happened, what she knows, why knowing it can help others speak. Silence could not be allowed to be the victor.

And the people bowed and prayed 

To the neon god they made. 

And the sign flashed out its warning 

In the words that it was forming. 

And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls 

And tenement halls 

And whispered in the sounds of silence.

This was not right. They could hear the prophets yet did nothing with what they knew. Words enveloped in silence, which essentially erased them. She was clueless. She didn’t want to hear dystopian prayers to a god who is incapable of saving them. She had a right to possess words, even those as yet unborn. She had the right to give them away. Was there truly nothing but silence in the world? Was there no way out of the realm of the unsaid?

I will not stop running, but I will stop running away.