Silence and Sunday Post Meridiem

It is so unbelievable how everything could be so immobile. Each of the huge trees outside my apartment that make a canopy of soothing shade out on the front yard has a million leaves; and each of those leaves may very well have been carved out of stones, for they are so still.

Have you been in a situation where the whole world around you stops moving and you are the only one that seems to have any life? The trees, branches and leaves, the blades of grass, the fallen leaves on the road, the bushes, the air, the buildings, the neighbors, everyone and everything seems so dead and mummified. Even the sun's rays are staying away; may be they are afraid they might impart a life to those dead. Absolute silence, a state of absolute rest. More like a state of rest in peace. That is this place, Magnolia Street in Winston Salem on a cloudy Sunday afternoon.

I've been here for a year now, and the defeaning silence was what caught me off guard when I started living here. It was unbearable for me who had lived in Bangalore for 3 years. I wanted to yell out, "MAKE SOME NOISE, YOU ZOMBIES, I'M GOING CRAZY!" But then I started to like it, and I got used to it. I don't feel anything these days, unless it is a Sunday afternoon.

Now, it is one of those Sunday afternoons.