Sounds

Well that was surely an hour. All the way to the mall and back. I decided to follow the tracks there, mostly cuz it's a nice flat trek. I exited out the side of the building and right down to the tracks. It's very windy day and snow is starting to blow wildly across the river on the north shore. Like a force field the river provides a barrier and keeps the city in a safe snow free bubble. The wind howls intensely the mere sound enough to tense my shoulders as if cold. I listen for awhile to the howl, magnified here on the flats along the river's edge. It isn't cold, it only sounds cold and I convince my self through repetition and soon my shoulders relax.




The old weathered tree stump instantly stood out in the surrounding pallor of gray and brown. The vibrant green moss seemed neon in the strange gray light and then beneath an old discarded can as if hidden rests on its side. Red letters 'waste' warn of the danger when consumption corrupts cohesion.

The rest of the walk as uneventful as the day seems in the sound of winter and the snow swirl increasing with each passing moment. Soon the elephant hides and peeks out occassionally when the wind whisks a cloud of snow from the face and ever the back bears the load of it all as I watch the creek valleys fill with snow and the barely discernible trees go from dull to white.

Into Wal Mart fluorescence for two cans of cat food and some cream for making sure the luscious coffee addiction contains all the pleasurable ingredients. All this vivid plasticality, all this focused consumerism, mass quantities of the same things over and over line shelves, all these faces seem ugly in the harsh light analytical negative wash created by conformity and the mouse in a maze aspect of people milling about, all this for a mere two fifty worth of product. Seems way more expensive in light of the monster it feeds. Now out to buy a lighter to enflame the other addictions running rampant through veins craving stimulation through mind yearning for sedation.

Numb to the world, I walk in a bubble of winter jacket, zipped high with deep round hood, it ripples in the blowing wind, muffles exterior sounds, creates an almost silent place within to walk and shut away the thought but for sound, focused on, it increases when rubber on pavement whines along the road beside this sidewalk I stroll on ever so slow, to absorb the essence of meditative silence, while world whistles around. Slowly up the hill to home, the mountain now completely wrapped in snow, shifting and crawling across its shape. And still the town resists the weather and a small surround of silence sits amidst a raging force of storm, as if magically induced warmth prevents everything from being swallowed. There is no purpose for sound without a receiver.