Non-fiction / White Noise (Analysis)
At 1 am, after running off 7 hours of sleep for the last three days, anything that’s soft and fuzzy starts to seem inviting.
But even as your head hits the pillow, and the room starts its descent to dark, you can’t help but pick up things about the world around you. Without visual cues, they all seem a little more accentuated.
There’s a lump in my pillow, about 3 inches from where my head’s resting cocked to the left. I would’ve never known, and come tomorrow, I probably won’t remember. Or be able to pick it out based on what my pillow looks like. But I can tell right now. Who knew?
The most taxing thing as I (or you) am drifting off to oblivion, though, is the white noise. Background static. The things that harass your brain day in and day out, that you never really think about. The speaker set in my room that seems to be on 24 hours a day is picking up a little static because the connection on the back isn’t so clean. Ordinarily, I would phase it completely out without ever even really knowing it was there. But now, I hear it loud and clear. The hum of bad wiring, combined with the faintest of radio signals. I can actually pick out 93.3, the country station, on the faint feedback. I wouldn’t mind so much, if I liked country.
Summer is by and far the worst for background noise. You can’t escape it, try as you might. The whir of the fan is an obvious fix, but without that, you still pick up the hums of various other machines in the house, wrestling with the heat and humidity of a July night. Phase those out, and it’s bugs right outside your window, chirping, or squeaking, or whatever the fuck bugs actually do when they make their little noises. Close the window, and the sounds of the birds that eat those bugs will leak through. And so on.
Most people find white noise disturbing, to a degree. There are some crackpot theorists out there who actually believe supernatural forces communicate through it. Voices from beyond the grave and what not. Unless Kenny Chesney has an important personal message for me, I doubt it.
I can only remember being in total silence once in my life. It was during winter. Most winters see the low drone of a heater as it kicks in and out, trying to keep you warm. Everyone’s all crammed inside to avoid the weather. You’d think, if anything, it would be more noisy.
But, at 3 in the morning when it’s 10 below out and you’re miles from civilization, you start to get a whole new understanding of quiet. At that temperature, there’s nothing alive any more except you and the evergreens. No bugs. No birds. And at the time, no people either. If you pick the right night, the right place, the right time, you’d be surprised. Without the usual howl of a winter wind at night, the air is crisp and quiet. This is the time when the loudest thing resounding in your ear is the smoldering of your cigarette as you take a drag, which, all things considered, is a pretty loud sound. Maybe some heavy crunching from the new snow under your feet as you stamp out your butt, temporarily entranced by the cherry.
After a certain time in such quiet, you begin to contemplate your own mortality. There’s nothing to remind you of whatever life you’re living that week, and the grand scale of everything sinks in, making you feel rather petty. If you pick the right night, you can watch the moon make its round in the sky, almost bright as day. You can still squeeze it in between your fingers, but tonight you feel dwarfed by it. You can literally hear everything that’s going on in your body. More disturbing, you hear most of what’s going on in your mind. And sometimes, if you pick the right night, you’ll find you don’t like what you hear.
After a while, when you’re realizing you were burnt out before you even seriously started, you head toward the house and its quiet, comfortable heat. Tonight you’re still sober, but your head’s still in space.
After a while, you think maybe it’s time to turn off the computer, turn on the fan, and sleep.
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I love the ideas in this piece and the details you give are concrete and so deliberately delivered. However, the ending seemed like you might, just might break into sermon on the outdoor, freezing mountain but only because you interject a few more “you’s” here. I did enjoy the read and the intricacy of it all.
squeeze it in between your fingers,- great imagery
Only thing is how are you outside then go inside, that wasn’t really explained as much and the details were so concrete with everything else.
Really enjoyed it.
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