Cacophony (599 hits)
Category: Sound & MusicRating: 1.9 on 12 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by <deisangua.at.hotmail.com> (View user info) at 2004-03-12 11:02:10 EST
There's something about the number 11, it seems.
I think about what happened yesterday, because it is important. I think about it because, after 9/11, Spain expressed their sorrow for our loss along with much of the rest of the world. What happened to them on 3/11 is worth just as much.
I've read the news story, as many others must have. The descriptions that truly press against my mind the most is not the blood or body parts, but the sounds.
When I think about it, this is what it sounds like to me.
I've been on trains in New York City and elsewhere, and they can be noisy. Unless you're a nosy person who is always listening in on the conversations of others, even a semi-crowded has a murmur, cut off and on by silence. But really, the language doesn't matter, because the voices that you hear overlap and shuttle around so randomly that it is not the words that you're hearing. It is simply human discussion, interaction, communication. The usual chatter, the usual business.
Perhaps, when the explosions came, there was a split second of shocked silence where no one thought to say a word. Nothingness caught in mid-sentence. Or perhaps it happened so fast that time didn't even allow that much. Just fire and force and flying metal. Flying pieces of your countrymen, flying pieces of your friends, flying pieces of you.
The roar of each explosion must have resounded for blocks. Like a howl of rage, riding on a storm of flame and dust and hate, a clamoring whirlwind of things slamming into other things as the sonic boom rips its way free like a demon from a womb.
The endless echo of crashing stone and tinkling glass would have followed, before dulling to a near-silence.
And then the rising wave of people's voices would have begun again.
This time it would have been louder, more insistent. Shocked at first, then growing with desperation and pain. Like being stabbed, you know? You may not feel it the split second a blade enters, but that pain isn't far behind. No matter how tough you are, your first instinct is to vocalize your distress. To cry out, or whimper, or groan, or yell.
I'm sure those were the next sounds to echo through the streets of Madrid. The pain, the distress. I remember it from two and a half years ago. Maybe you do too. Senseless, screaming, abject pain. This is the point. That multitude of cries, horrified and agonized, that is the point above all else. For terrorists, it is the money shot.
The sound of the wounded screaming and crying out for help, that would have been there too. If you had been there, the only quiet left would be the howl of thoughts inside your mind. What could you do for them, exactly? Are you some kind of hero? What would you save anyways?
Perhaps you'd remember it could be important, life-changing even, to attend to at least one person. One could mean...something. Or perhaps, like a doctor or priest, you could simply try to comfort someone you can see isn't going to make it back home again. At least they could be touched by a human hand as they die, hear the deceptions that tell them that they're going to be alright. They'd want to believe it...they would. It is kindness, to let your voice join the rest of the din, even drowned out to the point that it is pointless.
What you say may mean everything. It may mean nothing. You never know, but perhaps you would speak anyways.
Doubtless, there are others who added to what little was left of the silence, shocked into stillness. Then there are those who would add their thudding footsteps and panicked cries to the mix, as they ran for safety (another bomb could be near, after all). They would be the sound of cowardice, like a scattered and spreading undercurrent moving away from the point of the blast, heralding doom like squawking birds fleeing the echo of a gunshot.
Shortly after, though, there was a new sound in Madrid, which I think is the worst noise of all. Terrorism has been around for centuries. But we live in a new time. And on days such as these we can expect to hear this sound more often as the news spreads quickly in our age of instant communication.
It must have been like a second cloud of smoke, the rattling, chiming, and ringing cacophony, growing slowly as it built, as the news spread over the city...the rising sound of cellular phones calling, their RingTones intertwining like lost lovers grasping at the air.
And on the other side of those phones someone was waiting, someone who loved the person who once carried that phone. Someone who was hoping to hear the voice they'd recognize immediately, begging God and fate to hear their one lonely soul pleading amidst all the death and carnage.
But those phones just kept on. And with each unanswered ring, the drumbeat of dread crushed the hearts of those who just wanted to know they'd see their loved ones again. The cellular phones have become the unanswered call for the dead in this century, the shriek of family and friends and lovers for whom nothing will ever be the same again.
Dear Spain...I'm sorry that this has happened to you.
User Reviews
Submitted by mystiamoon (user info) at 2004-04-14 05:53:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yup it's good.....as if I had any doubt
Submitted by K.M (user info) at 2004-03-12 17:45:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Caulaincourt (user info) at 2004-03-12 17:13:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
It IS very well-written.
Although I wonder what it feels like when bomb rains the down the sky. I see no post describing this. Let's ask Iraqis.
Submitted by WishOfHope (user info) at 2004-03-12 14:57:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by AlwaysAnEagle (user info) at 2004-03-12 14:53:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent, excellent, excellent.
Submitted by William_Q_Percy (user info) at 2004-03-12 13:56:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
The perfect soundtrack for this post: Disappear by A Perfect Circle
Very well written
Submitted by itchy (user info) at 2004-03-12 13:54:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Deisangua (user info) at 2004-03-12 13:03:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I wouldn't, Loki. I barely answer the phone as it is, and I don't own a cell. But that's really immaterial, I guess I'd just be more interested in the inujured. Unless the person it belonged to was alive enough to ask me to. Which would suck.
Submitted by Davros (user info) at 2004-03-12 12:15:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Profound
'Nuff said
Submitted by TaK (user info) at 2004-03-12 11:53:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
My words are not enough.
Maybe my heart will be.
Submitted by SpikeGoddess (user info) at 2004-03-12 11:25:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Dear Spain,
I stand in solidarity with you. I've heard those sounds of death; they are the same in any language.
I have not forgotten that day that my country changed, but holding to its memory will not dull my empathy for you.
I have not forgotten 9/11.
I promise not to forget you, either.
SpikeGoddess
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2004-03-12 11:19:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Amazing, I thought the very same thing - about the cell phones. I don't know why but when I read about that it really stuck with me. How many times do you think that has happened since we've all started carrying around our little electronic leashes?
Then I thought, what if I had been there and heard the phone ringing in the pocket of someone I knew was dead. Would I have the courage to answer that phone and break the news to the person on the other end? How would I feel if I were the person on the other end of that phone and a stranger answered it and confirmed my worst fears. I'm kind of fucked up just thinking about it.