I'm trying...

In an effort to clear my small living space I have being going through boxes of stuff. Much of it I haven't looked at for years. One thing is a shoebox full of computer disks filled with letters and writing from my first years in China. I read through some of them today and had a good laugh along with some sadness. I read the letters to and from people I may never see again and it brings me back to that very moment lost forever. Maybe I'll share a few with you...unedited.


The noise may as well be silence. It is garish, it is not grey like smog or car exhaust. It is black and stark as coal but not fine dust. It is bowling balls of coal striking you down from impossible angles. Ping pong balls of coal pinging inside you skull. Reverberating. The noise assaults, one rogue wave slamming you up against the white cliffs of Dover. Relentless driving of the hockey puck, slapshot, one after another at the goalie.

Sometimes you can hear them see them coming and can prepare for the onslaught. Get hit in the head enough and you become punch drunk. Do you feel it anymore, notice it anymore. So when you finally hear a beautiful sound beautiful music, any pleasing sound, the pollution becomes silent. The noise disappears, you don’t hear it or don’t allow yourself to hear it. It is like white noise, the humming of the computer fan, the fridge, the tick tick of the electric clock.It is white noise, yet blinding white. You are out in the sun too long and go inside your eyes cannot adjust.

A symphony, the pounding of the kettle drums the fury of the violin the blaring of the trumpets and then the composer inserts a small gentle sound. It breaks the noise cleaves it cleanly. A melodic line from the French horns, a trill from the flute, a ping from the triangle. Their voices are splashes of colour like a goldfinch amongst sparrows.

I am lying on my single bed. The blue sheets stamped in red, property of… The air conditioner a steady hum. I can hear teenage boys down the hall, slamming doors yelling in baritone. Competing for sound space. The sound marches down the long cavernous hallway and knocks on my door but I won’t let it in. So it seeps under the crack in the door like a poisonous gas seeking me out.

The TV is on but on mute. The antennae emits that high nervous system sound of your body.
Below me the room below I can hear teenage girls gossiping, laughing, arranging furniture, laughing, squealing , slamming doors.

I open the drawer to my laminated white night table. The drawer sticks it is off center and just doesn’t open smoothly hangs down on an angle once open. The table that P stood on to change the light bulb in my bathroom. Wobbly, he cries out, “Hold me!” And I grab on to his wiry firm legs, not thinking for once that he means to hold the table. Opportunity knocks. That’s the closest I’ll ever get to him.

I take out my portable CD player, doesn’t work that well, my mom won it in a contest. I put the earphones in and adjust the cord below my chin. I adjust the volume and press play. Closing my eyes. Adjust the volume a bit louder.

I sing in a quiet shy voice, not really wanting to hear my real voice. Worried that someone may hear me. What foolishness that is. I sing a little louder, fuck it if anyone hears. Claiming my small space. My space my room, my sound. My voice washes over me, coats me in pepto bismal pink, which magically expands into a soft foam. I sing louder and this cushion swells. My body is a sound cushion, absorbing noise holding it, and shielding

I am safe from the poisonous gases from the daggers that pierce my eardrums. Safe. Sigh.
The phone rings, and jolts me out my cocoon. I stumble to answer it. Pick it up.

H-ell-o. S-an-d-ee. Do you remember me? It’s...

Oh its my annoying little bank clerk, of course I remember you. But please go away. His voice is nasally , his whole personality one big nasal cavity, annoyingly dripping dripping, Chinese water torture. Please wipe that little drop from the tip of you nose. Irritating.

No I don’t want to see you . I’m very busy
Oh busy, very busy,
You must take care of you health.
Yes I must.
Good bye…slam.