Being woken up in the middle of the night by silence, it seems to me, silence itself. A definitive silence, as if no noise could disturb it any longer. A silence that succeeds all possible noises, which it exhausts or absorbs in a voracious sponge.

Have I been sent to an interstellar void where symphonies remain silent?

I take a deep breath, a yoga technique : there’s air!

Nevertheless the silence persists.

I get up, and the floor doesn’t creak. I light the room, and the switch doesn’t click. I turn on the television which shows images of a far-off country, and the reporter moves his lips uselessly without seeming to notice.

It’s only the beast that dies, isn’t it ? Silence does not die.

I have suddenly become deaf, that’s all ! No doubt, the beginning of the end. So I decide to cry.

I cry, I shout, like a beast in fact. And I listen, it’s horrible, at three in the morning, think why don’t you ! You’ll wake the whole house. The grumpy man downstairs will hit the ceiling with his glass cane, and the neighbors in chorus will call the police: Oh, oh, the police! Oh oh…

Placid silence, unchanging.

I realize that I was not yet in anguish. It comes all of a sudden. This silence, this emptiness. The sudden idea that there may be no one left, or nothing more, than me, with my memory and my inaudible cries.

What surrounds me is actually a silent film, staged by a tired god, and in which I am playing the only role, comical and cursed.

Does real life still exist anywhere?

Furiously I open the window.

And it is then an unexpected hubbub which, from afar, comes to fill my ears. The street, lit by torches and Bengal lights, overflows with a fabulous crowd who laughs, sings and emits sounds worthy of a menagerie.

Hearing is given to me. I was in the eye of the hurricane, in the silence be-fore the storm.

The crowd is getting closer. It is made up of young people, girls, but also animals of all kinds that mix happily, hence the trumpeting, cackling, neighing, barking and other bellowings. The entirety of creation is in the street.

Seeing me at my window, they receive me as a hero. A little embarrassed, I answer them with a friendly gesture. After which, to provoke me certainly, they begin to kiss and hug each other without concern for their respective species. That’s wonderful ! An incredible bacchanal, a universal orgy in the middle of the street, in the middle of the night!

Without any further hesitation, I take off, and dozens of arms, legs, wings and horns receive me gently two floors down. I am engulfed with a pleasure that I would never have imagined, in the heat of furs, feathers and bare skin.

Before I lose myself altogether, I give a thought, full of gratitude, for the si-lence that pulled me from sleep.

December 1 2017