by David Elder

Created on: December 28, 2008   Last Updated: December 29, 2008

Blessed silence

"RAT-A-TAT-TA-TA-TA-TA" Simon stuck his head out of the driver's side window and looked at the maintenance crew with the jack hammer that was digging up the street. Great, he was going to be late for work again.

"Hey buddy, you gonna' sit there all day? I got deliveries to make. Come on you idiot, MOVE IT!"

The delivery truck driver laid on his horn with vengeance. Simon pulled his head back inside the car and once again asked himself why he had moved to the city. He had come from Ohio, where people were friendly, and noise like this was an unknown commodity. If it wasn't so damn hot he'd roll up his window. If he had a better job he could have afforded a car with air conditioning.

"I SAID MOVE IT YOU JERK!"

He looked into his side rear view mirror and saw the delivery driver shaking his fist. It wasn't as if he could go anywhere, the whole street was frozen in gridlock. Couldn't the moron see that? Sirens wailed on a neighboring block, street vendors yelled at the top of their lungs trying to be heard above the din, and somewhere a baby was crying at the top of its lungs. Why didn't the mother tend to her baby? Was she deaf?

To his left a cab driver sat smoking a cigarette in his hack, a baseball game blasting away on the radio. Two young men were having an argument on the sidewalk, screaming loudly at each other, which drew the attention of a traffic cop, who ran past his passenger window blowing a whistle. A military jet flew over so low that the sound of its passage made his ashtray rattle.

The clamor built steadily into a roaring crescendo that merged into one huge ear splitting racket whose parts were indistinguishable from the rest. He looked around in a growing panic at the other people in their cars and on the street, but none of them seemed to notice. They were all going about their normal routines as if the ever building blast of noise was no big deal.

Were they all crazy? He grasped the steering wheel of his sedan with an iron grip, pushing with his feet against the floorboard of the car, and slowly raised himself off the surface of the seat. He closed his eyes as a tiny drop of blood dripped from his left ear and ran slowly down the side of his face. And the sound grew louder, and louder, and...

"SHUTUP!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "CAN'T YOU ALL JUST SHUTUP?"

Simon opened one eye cautiously and lowered himself back slowly to his seat. All sound had suddenly ceased, in fact it was so quiet he wasn't sure that his hearing was still

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