I was gone when the Silence ended this year. They awoke alone.
It
took a morning, a lifetime, for them to understand that the Silence was
gone. Hundreds of them, with faces, eyes, arms, legs, walking around,
waking up. As they watched each other, unsure how to react, unsure how
to take this awakening, unsure how to approach the world around them,
they mourned. The wake—a ritual served for endings—felt the most fitting
here, as the silence had come to an end. And while there was much to
see, losing the silence was truly sad. Losing it meant losing the sleep
they had known and losing that meant losing everything. Instead, they
were now in rooms, endless halls of rooms, with beds and signs and
stairs and kitchens and chairs. They walked, searching for the point,
for the meaning, while some searched for the Silence, hoping they could
find it again.
Yet, the rooms felt barren and homely. Without threat and without life.
So eventually, they gathered. Lost, and unsure what else to do, they began to talk.
Some
talked about the Silence, wondering what had happened to it, some
talked about the Noise that had taken its place. Some talked about the
rooms they were in and what they were for. Some talked about themselves,
discovering who they were, trading names and ideas.
They gathered in
a hall, a large hall, with long tables, benches too, stretching on and
on. It could fit them all, if they wanted to stay there, and it did not
seem to have any other reason to exist other than letting them be.
There
was a long black board on the end, strange in its size and scope,
stretching up far into the black void up above they thought was a
ceiling. Yet, outside of that, there was little in there other than
themselves.
“Shouldn’t we try to retreat back to the Silence? Isn’t that what we want?”
“Why not explore what’s here? Maybe the Noise isn’t bad?”
“I don’t know that we can do either. We’re here now. Who are we to control the Silence or the Noise?”
“We must have awoken for a reason.”
“But how can we know? Not like there’s anyone to ask.”
They looked around. There wasn’t anyone, indeed. They couldn’t
consult the Silence, they couldn’t hear the Noise clearly enough to
understand it. It was just a humming, a static, a vibration that shook,
tingled their ears. Some went exploring again, trying to find the source
of the Noise, hoping they could hear it louder, hoping they could shut
if off. But no, it just remained, ever quiet, but always there. They
found new rooms, stacks of things, huge warehouses with stuff, whatever
you could imagine, wood, tree, gold, iron, string, paper (so much
paper), cardboard, LED’s, switches, fabric, and plastic and plastic. And
there, in all the rooms, seemingly, the only two repetitions were the
door they entered—always grey wood with a brass handle—and a single
black dot: A sphere, no larger than a hand, encapsulated in a white
ring, with black metal and wiring and lenses.
A camera. One in every
room. It took them long to question it. At first it seemed so natural,
so obvious, there was no reason to think about it. There was a door to
the room, so there was a camera. It was the same. It was like air, all
impenetrable, and with a buzzing red light.