Maithaly BanikI hear. I listen. I do not utter a word. I patiently sit and absorb sounds. The sound of the first drops of rain, the small calls of tiny birds on branches, the waves hitting the shore. I just sit and listen. Closing my eyes, I absorb.
Perhaps I have forgotten how to speak. A timid boy sits in the corner of the class, a frightened boy hides under the bed, a lonely boy sits in the canteen with headphones on, a co-worker who works overtime, never complaining, and a quiet apartment on the second floor. Not a word is uttered.
He must be so lonely. I do not know. I sit in my own company. I have one foot inside the class and the other on an uninhabited island. But I still listen to the sounds of both worlds: the sounds of chalk scratching against the board, the sound of wind rustling through palm trees, harsh words dug into their graves, the gush of sweet coconut water, dust all over hands and floor, and the chirp of seagulls hunting for food. I hear them all.
I return home after a long day of non-stop classes. And then I lay for hours on my bed. Looking straight at the ceiling. I hear the grating sound of the fan. Round and round and round. I stare, and I listen. I get lost. In a blue world of dolphins, their mating calls drive me into dreams. I listen to the bubbles of drowning bodies. I listen to the exhalation of the giants of the ocean. But I feel this world lacks a sound. A sound that I wish to hear. An unknown melody waiting for me on the other side of something. I fall into depthless sleep.
I remember a time when I used to listen from the other side of the door. Or perhaps from under the bed. A shark attacking a small fish. It was hungry, and the thrashes were loud. The water drowned the sounds of struggle. The small fish stopped making sounds too. But the shark was always loud. An ear-gnawing sound of crushing bones. The noises still continue to buzz near my ears, like a bee or a fly. Maybe even a mosquito. But those were not the melodies I wanted to hear.
Nails dragging on the board brings me to the world again. It is like weights tied to my feet, never allowing me to fly; they only help me drown. Drown in the drone of the tiresome day. A routine of waking, eating, writing, reading, walking, eating, staring and dreaming. They all have sounds. The fresh daze of waking up, the munching of eating, the scratching of writing, the teeth-grating of reading, the clomping of walking, the munching of eating, the buzz of staring and finally, the silence of dreaming.
I sit and scribble. That’s a noise I like to hear. But the clanging of utensils, the banging of doors and the thudding of a falling body are clamours of another failed day. And for that, they are the loudest that I pick up. They make me mad. I wish to cut my ears off. But I still hear them, almost on a regular basis. So, I choose to drown them under the sound of the ocean, sounds I imagine, sounds that are inside my head, sounds that drain me.
That day, those noises began to roar. It was so loud that I couldn’t even gather the scribbling of my pencil over paper. So, I decided to silence them. The sound of fire crackling is also my favourite. Have I told you that? The lighter clinked. The fire sang. From the flames sang some pretty angels. Ah! The melody! A tone that trickles into my ears and takes over my whole body. A music that makes me want to dance. The angels embraced me with their song. I wished to drown in the moment…
The sirens were excruciatingly harsh. Those were not the sirens I had dreamt about. I longed to hear those angels again. But the sirens kept blaring. I slipped into silence. This time, when I woke up, instead of the fresh daze of morning, I heard but the mechanical jarring of machines – my enemy.
Day in and day out, my tormentors played their trumpets around me. I refused to talk back. One by one, humans came and went, but their voices were mute, just like me. I lay on the rack, stretched on the table with friends torturing me. Then, one day, they sent me out into the concrete world.
The years came, followed by brown, unoiled hinge doors, opening and closing. And in every new place, I wanted to listen to those heavenly voices again. Every day now was the sound of grating fans and skipping stones. I waited, listening. Patiently, I listened to catch even a single note of the melody. It has been years now.
I hear. I listen. The electricity in the air is buzzing today. I sit on the table and scribble. Words hold no music. I hate words. I scribble. Suddenly, I pick up the sound of crackling. All other sounds stop. I hear crackling.
I run towards my beloved. The blaze is very small. The angels have yet to start singing. I can stop the crackling and prevent the glorious voice from coming to me. I can refuse to listen. I can stop it all from the beginning. I can let my life be only about hearing mundane sounds.
I do not.
I add fuel. The fire eats and spreads. The crackling increases. Slowly, it moves and becomes big; larger than life, larger than my mind could have conjured in my dreams, larger than my love for it. It spreads from the curtains to the furniture. The angels are preparing to sing, running about like they did in my house long ago. Back then, there were just two of them. But here is a choir of voices. They run about in the glass case, and their feet scramble. They trample and thud, but I ignore them.
I wait outside to listen to the angels sing. And then they do. The sounds are better than my faded memories remember. The harmony makes thousands of gloriosa lilies bloom around the landscape. The flowers lick and lash onto the wings of those angels. And they sing. They cry and crawl, and they sing. They drag and claw, and they sing. They perish and fall, and they sing.
They sing of flowers and rain. They sing of oceans and mist. They sing of clouds and waves. They sing of flames and death. The heavens bleed with red and tar. I smile. I embrace the music and slowly begin to dance. The melody sweeps me off my feet. I hold a charred carcass up. We dance under the moonlight to the melody of heaven. The soft light and the black eyes, wearing a blazing dress of crimson blood. We dance like this is the end of the world.
The flowers slowly start to grow on my body. I believe they recognize me, an angel in this deary grave. My partner’s eyes glow red, and they move to give me a kiss. I embrace, and softly, our lips meet. That’s when I begin to sing. My song mixes with those of the angels crawling beneath. We all become one in glory. I sing, and I listen. My voice is now just like the angels. Slowly, when we begin to fall, silence creeps in.
