From: learnd@lafcol.lafayette.edu (Dave Learn)
Newsgroups: alt.prose
Subject: Silence is Best
Keywords: short story
Date: 17 Aug 92 17:43:14 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Lehigh University


I used my tape of total silence again, whenever it was necessary.  On           
Friday nights, when either KDR or FIJI were on, the tape was especially         
useful to cover up their racuous partying and battles for musical               
supremacy.  Dare I say it?  Without that cassette, my grades would              
surely have plummeted.                                                          
     On All College Day, while people were making complete fools of             
themselves on the Quad (of course they wouldn't remember it in the              
morning, so I guess that was all right), I was trying to study.  It was         
impossible.  Every time I thought their commotion was over, some new            
high-pitched wail filled my ears.  "Is that a guitar or did he just             
break his vocal cords?" I asked no one in particular.                           
     The roar soon became unbearable.  I grabbed my total silence               
cassette, and, readying my new industrial strength speakers, I turned           
the volume up to 10.  In seconds, blissfully pure silence reigned               
supreme.  I leaned back in my bed with my copy of _Invisible Man_ to            
do some reading for my English class.                                           
     By the time Emerson showed inivisible man the letter Bledsoe had           
written, some movement in the room slowly intruded on my attention.  It         
wasn't much, just a slight vibration.  Someone was pounding noiselessly         
on my door.  Confused, I stood up and walked over to the door.  That was        
weird.  Why couldn't I hear the pounding?  Then I remembered--the               
cassette tape was on auto-reverse and was still blanketing out sound            
in my room.  I opened the door.                                                 
     Hello? I said to the security chief.  I frowned.  No words had             
come out.                                                                       
     He moved his mouth noiselessly, rapidly mouthing a bunch of words          
about "silence complaint" (all I could make out), as a slow awareness           
dawned on him that nothing he was saying was being heard by either of           
us.  He scowled.  I shrugged my shoulders helplessly.  Grabbing my by           
the shoulder, he led me across the hole so I could look at McCartney            
Street.  Two cars moved silently and speedily down the street.  Unable          
to hear one another, they silently collided in a twisted heap of metal          
upon metal.                                                                     
     I was shocked.  Were my speakers *that* powerful?                          
     He led me back into my room and had me look out the window.  Just          
past Hogg were hundreds of people milling about as though they wanted           
to party.  The Tripoli Steel Band, which three years ago had advocated          
racial violence, now looked consternatedly at their steel drums which           
made no noise when hit, kicked, dropped, or otherwise struck.  Unable           
to bear the silence, students were leaving the Quad in droves.  I had           
single-handedly ruined All-College Day.  I looked at the speakers.              
Just how powerful were these things?  I had never intended to create            
such mayhem--just to study.                                                     
     I reached over to press STOP on my tape player.  Suddenly the              
commotion of two drivers, arguing over whose fault the accident was,            
reached my ears.  A semi-musical clanging assaulted my senses, making           
me wish the All-College Day people had either hired another type of             
band, or at least a better band, like the one that had performed the            
previous Wednesday.  A loud cheer went up from the student body as the          
sound returned.  I staggered under the physics of the transformation.           
     "Son," said the security officer, "give me the tape.  We can't let         
this sort of thing fall into the wrong hands."                                  
     As I reached for the tape, visions of horror filled my mind.  A            
cavalcade of soldiers raced their cycles through the streets of Easton,         
unheralded by their otherwise noisy motorbikes.  Stealth bombers, the           
roar of their engines also concealed, ran over enemy lines--over *our*          
lines--and delivered their payload of death undetected.  Worst of all,          
an image of the ice-cream man, his pleasant songs muted loomed large            
in my mind.  The music had died.                                                
     I handed him the cassette.  Gathering my books about me, I went            
to Skillman Library to study in silence and in peace there.