Sound of Music

Have you ever heard the music each place creates at night? The winter night is long and silent. From behind the closed doors and windows, we can occasionally hear the otherwise inaudible trains chugging by the station a few kilometres away, or the hooting of the owl that flies by close in a chaotic rhythm. Once or twice, a puppy squeaks in the chill or two cats sound like a baby wailing, like a musical background score of a haunting movie. If you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of the breeze against the windowpanes. And breaking the otherwise quiet that the night wears is the sound of an ambulance winding through the road at a distance. You figure out from which direction it comes and where it travels. Then there is the sound of dry leaves rustling and the occasional footsteps of people walking on them. Does this city ever fall silent? Probably not. Because even silence has a sound. Perhaps of your own breath or heartbeat. All making music, all that can be heard in separate musical rhythms. And then one by one the stars disappear as the crow's call wakes the chirping birds way before dawn. The tinkling bells of the cycles of the milkman and paper boy can be heard. Once again, the music turns into noise.

© Suranya