Deafening Silence
01/25/11
I awoke from my sound sleep without opening my eyes, my head embedded in a cushiony cave between the weighty feather pillow and puffy mattress topper. I lay there in the blackness without moving. Warm, comfortable, a sleepy dead weight, listening to the familiar constant tonal surround sound squeal of Tinnitus in my ears, when all of a sudden…….it stopped.Plunged suddenly into complete and utter silence my brain became alert as though I’d just woken to the sound of a window breaking. I raised my head slightly off the sheet in order to pay greater attention to this unfamiliar world with both ears.
And there it was, something I last remember experiencing 9 years previously when I slept in a sleeping bag on a small reed mat on the sand, under the stars in the Sahara Desert. Saw the night sky with no light pollution, smelled air with no scent and felt the persistent eerie breeze without a single noise. No trees to rustle through or buildings to whoosh around… SILENCE in it’s purest form.
Empty silence.
An instant respite from the squeal, the buzz, the small Cessna aircraft and my own whooshing heart beat pounding away in my ears 24/7, 365. An event so marvellous I reached into the darkness for the spot where my pen lay and scrawled the occasion into my notebook.
From that pillowy cave, I smiled.
Then just as quickly as it had switched off, the noise switched back on.
I fell back to sleep still smiling.
