Sounds

Living in an apartment you get used to sounds—

heavy footsteps upstairs, pounding on the wall

next door, a toilet flushing perhaps two or three

floors above, doors slamming in the hallway, yells

and screams now and then, loud conversations at

11PM, a dog barking for hours on end. Who in hell

vacuums at this late an hour? Loud stereo and TV,

a cycling refrigerator, hot water heater, air condi-

tioner, furnace or fan, a dripping faucet. Sounds,

some aggravate and agitate; some sounds you get

used to. Apartments are automatically furnished

with surround sounds all around, sideways, hallways,

inside and out, up and down, day and night, a sym-

phonic cacophony of sounds. Over the past years,

more than I care to recall, I have lived in apartments

from Kansas City to St. Louis, from Albuquerque to

Denver back to St. Louis then back to Denver again,

and from Denver back to Kansas City again. Oh, the

sounds abound. I have heard same sounds different

places, different sounds different places. I was walking

down a city street one day, blaring sounds all around,

and I passed a man wearing a Colorado Rockies ball

cap. Huh, unusual, I thought, but not really, seeing a

Rockies fan in KC. I then realized that I was in Denver,

not KC anymore. Every city, every place sounds the same.

Sounds got me all wound around, turned inside and out,

upside and down. Sometimes I awaken from my sleep

in the middle of the night. Must have been dreaming.

Darkness, silence, not a whisper, nothing profound.

Where am I? No sound. No town. Heaven, hell…

eternity? Death maybe.

-30-

Chris Hanch 2-4-2020