Friday, August 6, 2010

The Sounds of the Street

The sounds of the city streets are the last thing I hear at night, they rouse me in the morning with their cadenced rhythms and they filter through my dreams while I hover on the edge of sleep. The trucks rumble and grunt in their heaviness of passing. Breaks screech to avoid collision. The beeping horns of all the smaller cars and taxis layer a chorus in the background. There is one kind of horn that rises above the rest every so often. It’s sound hangs on in a dissonant rising and dipping of announcement. I do not yet know what kind of vehicle to link with this jingle. Together the river of traffic creates a thrum that never ceases, a constant throb of the city, like an echo of the people saying we are here, living, moving, we will not go away. There are birds not far outside my window cawing and twirpping their existence too, as if they are answering back to the living mass of traffic outside their door.

At first the clatter and verbalization is strange and invades my sleep like a stranger. However, though I have only been here for two nights, I can already sense my body slipping into its lilting tempo. I know that once these sounds are gone I will lie at night kept awake by the silence of their absence.

1 comment:

Husker6 said...

Maybe twizzlers could be used as ear plugs....he he!!!