Silence


Note: This was written in the spring of 1995, outside a high school cafeteria, while working on an NHS fund-raiser.


Silence. So close to the loud chaotic cafeteria. Yet here, a sort of silence exists. With the voices in the background, like a television left on in the next room, there is something peaceful out here. Everything else seems to fade away, drifting into that jumbled mass of confusion that is humanity. For every familiar entity that passes by, a dozen or more meaningless faces drift past. Someone now tries to break this peace. With a little persuasion, the intruder is dismissed, and everything returns as it was. The voices of the cafeteria break apart, drifting out, past me, to somewhere else. A crowd builds up, disperses, everything back to normal. I'm not here. Physically, I'm here. Nobody notices me, acknowledges me, yet my body remains here, trapped by laws and theories that I can't control. Someone notices, the image fades. Just leave me here. The less I have to connect me here, the better it is for all that is me. Before and after there is no silence, but now is different. The past is only distorted memories, and the future is mere speculation, but the present is forever. Forever fading, forever beginning anew. This instant alone is gone, but this feeling that can only belong to the instant is always present. Time passes, and past, present, and future move on. We can never explore the future, we can't revisit the past. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, with a brief pause at today. In the end it's all the same. Tomorrow will eventually become the present, for just long enough to appreciate the silence.


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