My friends and I had just finished playing D&D and we were going to Denny’s for food, as according to tradition. I stepped into my car parked in my garage with my friend, opened the garage door, and exited. As I left, I could see the visual effects of the mist in the night – the orange rays coming out of the sodium street lamps. I knew it was beautiful.
The first time I got to experience it though, was when I stepped out of my car at Denny’s. The air was misty and cool. As I moved through the fog, I could feel it condense and cool my skin. I was almost reluctant to enter the restaurant. What a cloistered lifestyle suburbanites live – the first time we hit real outdoors air is several miles away from home when you step out of the car there. At home, you have the luxury of an airlock to keep the outdoors out.
As I was leaving the restaurant, I felt the same thing. It was utterly quiet. Some neon lights were around, but there was no one. Loneliness is so great sometimes. When I got home – I couldn’t take it anymore. I left the garage door and stepped outside for a while, just to take it all in. A misty street – dead quiet. A few streetlights – people were sleeping, probably. Every step I took echoed. It was as if everyone had deserted the earth and I was standing on an abandoned street – lonely… At that point I really wished I had someone to share the scene with. If I did, I probably wouldn’t notice the beauty of it and just be groping her boobs though.
When there is no sound, your ears become more sensitive to small noises. At that minimum point of sensitivity, I heard a great background noise. I had no idea what it was… it may have been crickets chirping all around me, constantly, so dispersed that I couldn’t notice any real oscillation in the noise – as if all the sine waves were added up – all in different phases, so it was always equal to a constant.
It reminded me of that time I was in the doctor’s office and was graying out due to drop in blood pressure. It didn’t really fade to a distinct color – so it wasn’t a blackout. I was just slowly becoming less and less able to percieve contrast and it all faded to a generic gray… It was like that, but for hearing – it was all a gray noise.
I wonder if all of death is a gray noise – no black, no white, just no contrast. Living, then, is just the ability to experience the differences in things.
And all around was an unusual smell – the smell of suburban rain. It’s not particularly natural, but rare enough in California that it’s an experience enough to smell it – a strange smell of pavement. But touch was the real treat. Moving through the mist and feeling it condense on my arms and hands was amazing. It was a lady of the night passing by, caressing me as she passed with a cool and soft hand. But turn around, and she’s already gone…
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