The Silence of Modernity

Standing on a deserted street. The Buildings are dead mollusks, emptied out and hollow. Inside their halls I can hear the echo of millions of things yet to come. The future is bright and gloomy at the same time, as these buildings stand in the purgatory of our modern age. What will become of them? Who will they become? They stand on the edge of a great chasm, much like myself.

Resting in the quiet of the blue room, I am reminded of my deserted street. Sounds are hushed out as if in some holy temple. The silence of my places are so full and heavy, I find it hard to think, to breath, to live. I shrink on to the chair, feeling the incredible burden of this nothingness.

In some places time manages to escape reality. Some people see time as a constant, the ebb and flow of the tides, the rise and set of the moon, the tick and tock of a clock. But where I am, time forgets itself. Time stands still and speeds up. In the blue room, time stops to listen to the rain. I can feel my body slow down, my mind becomes serene. Deserted buildings and pictures are reminders that time can be frozen.

Standing on the street corner, with cars whizzing past me, I become lost in my environment. A couple holding hands stroll past me laughing at some clever joke. Across the street an old man, grayed by the heavy hold of time, props up a sign which begs for coins. Three boys eat noodles in a small Chinese restaurant behind the old man. The young man picks up a noodle, but before it reaches his mouth the noodle slips out of his chopstick grasp. I am standing there the observer of such a sliver of the world. My back aches and the car comes.

Kafka once wrote, “A cage went in search for a bird.”