Our prompt was the concept of silence found in Chaim Potok's The Chosen. As I got to thinking about it, I realized that, truly, there is no such thing as silence. There will always be the slightest noise, simply because we are living, breathing, thinking human beings.
In the most soundproof of rooms, the human ear is capable of hearing a heartbeat and the sound of blood rushing through veins. When the ear has nothing to listen to, it listens in on itself.
Humans are, by nature, noisy creatures. We revel in the roar of a car engine and the drone of our televisions and radios. We like to hear and be heard, to make noise and listen to it. We thrive on the hum of electricity and the patter of rain. Were it not for all this noise, surely we would go insane.
Truly, there is no such thing as silence. We are encased in noisy bodies, always in motion, making noise, making sound, lungs breathing, heart pumping. Perhaps only in death will we feel the embrace of silence, but even then I expect we will listen to the thinkings of our noisy heads racing with thoughts, like a heart pump-pumping lifeblood through neurons like veins.
No, I do not believe in silence. Always I am listening to electricity through copper wire and blood through veins, under breathing and gurgling and humming and rustling, ticking and beating and clicking and creaking and groaning, talking and laughing AND THEN my noisy head filled with so many thoughts. If you take out the talking, is that really silence?
And when I am dead, I should hope that I do not have to listen only to the thinkings my mind thinks. How could I wonder anything when I am all alone? How can I live without a heartbeat-beating a constant rhythm in my ears, pumping blood through my noisy veins?
Do you have a noisy head, too?
