That sound. That rhythmic whine and clack, whine and clack, whine, clack, whine, clack. Whine. Clack. The skipping record of old metal swing chains, weary and strained, sighing back and forth in incessant compulsion. 1
That sound gets in my head. I hear it's obsessive echo ringing, soft and constant, throughout the the air. It's the sound of escape, the sound of imprisonment, the sound of adjustment. The screaming static of the human condition. The silence that won't hush. 2
A day without that whine-clack would feel off, I know this, there have been random scarce days in the past three years when it ceased briefly and the unsettled quiet blared obscenely. I may be the only one who noticed. 3
She just goes and rocks there, swings there, for hours on end. And no one notices. My neurotic obsession is noticing, speculating, observing, not only her, but the behavior of all the rest that have absorbed her into a normal background feature, like a habit of environment adjustment. Looking out the window in curious awe as they all mill around her on the playground daily. Or sometimes sitting on the stoop as I suck down a cigarette, entertainment and irritation wrapped like a taunt wire across my brain. Taking in the nuances of her movements. Her head twisting to the right on every back swoop as her hair pours forward as though under liquid. The closed eyes and subtle, blissful smile in the front swoop. Whine. Clack. The newest development; she has gloves now. Specific gloves, I only see her wearing them on her way, or during, her daily excursions. I've made careful and deliberate note of this newly borne detail. They look leather from the distance here across the road.4
Whine... 5
I was there one late afternoon, perched on my weathered top step, the sun just passing down for its end of day western decent, with my smoke burning and raised halfway to my lips, when her dark eyes flew sudden and open on the forward motion. And I was caught in them, sucked into them like a black hole vacuum. The world taking instant petrification, then disappearing in a manic whirlpool as I went. Rushing beyond light down a barren highway. It was darkness and slaughter. Isolation and fear. I saw the twitching of bodies, the pulsing of flesh. The parching of plastic and concrete.6
Into an abyss cave I was plunged. Into cells and viruses. Blood and charred lungs. Coughing. Wailing. There was the livid flare of squalor and physical pain. Death and birth and sex and infection. Emaciation and straight jackets and pills. Razors and numbers and bullets and feces. Rags and shrill laughter and sweat. Rot and putridity's. Every righteous proclamation of human history. Every fervent morality. Every blind faith and hypocrisy. Every hidden demon of the mind.7
In blazing color I took in the vision, more soaked it in through every pore. The synapse of crackling electric current firing off from every direction, broiling and swirling. The utter sickness of a species playing out in thousands of scenes, at first in a pristine clarity, an enwombed sphere surrounding me, then flashing and whipping at accelerating speed. Distorting like a damaged movie reel as I was zeroed in on one still frame. It was her, in the dark grey of predawn, on her bed. Some movement stirring, some mass upon her. 8
And her dark eyes flew sudden and open. Catching me, peering hollow. Yanking me into her with a hooked violence.9
He was heavy on us, his hot breath intolerable. Paralyzed with detachment we lay there as he rose up. Our body seeming a separate thing we were watching with hapless apathy as our mind swung free and blissful, away from this morning, away from this tarnished bed and malicious room. Unfazed by the repeated cycle piercing our once tender, innocent body, unnoticing of the thick wet on the sheets. His exit was silent apart from the click of the knob.10
We lay there quiet and alone as the sun rose, as the dawn poured into the world. Far from this place, far from shame and guilt, far from pain. All too soon came a familiar and agitated voice in the hallway, an arm throwing the door open harshly.11
"What are you still doing in bed!? We're going to be late for service again because of you, look at you." our Mother shrilled with too sharp anger, well disguised undertones of resentful jealousy resonating out in her breath. "Get up now, get ready quickly, no dawdling. And for once can you make that wretched mess you call a bed properly?"12
She spoke as though we were something distasteful to deal with. She spoke as though we were the embedded cause of her desperate loneliness. She was rigid in her stance there, face hardened lips pursed. Turning, looking at her, our eyes and body felt as empty as hers seemed burning. As endless as hers were needful. 13
We rose. We coursed through the day in habitual movements, acting out scenes long ago learned and compartmentalized. Reciting lines and smiles expected, giving to occasional spontaneous ad lib, though always within the lines. Apart. One. I viewed and felt through her eyes and mine.14
And I was buzzing. I was rising and falling and disintegrating all at once. The rush of a tidal wave crashing and deafening me. In the center of the sphere weightless, matterless, and it was closing in on me. Shrinking, minimizing. Suffocating. Wrapping around the nothing of me with static clinging. The endless movie, the film of the human parasite enveloping me. Sickness and filth inescapable, the repetition of history feeding off itself, retching off itself. My chest seized up, my stomach wrenched into a knot. My mind screaming.15
...Clack16
She's swooping back, head turning, hair spilling around again, eyes closed. The park patrons are playing happily, laughing. No one is noticing. How can no one notice? How can the blindingly obvious issue not be noticed? It's never going to stop unless something is done. Unless someone steps up and takes notice. She's even got swinging gloves now, I suppose they are to prevent callous she's out there so often. 17
Whine. Clack. Whine Clack.18
Well, I've noticed. If it means living everyday in the obscene quiet of something adjusted to suddenly missing, I've watched and listened to this go on for far too long. There is something so deeply wrong here, it scratches and claws at my mind and heart with a venom that cannot be ignored. This degrading sickness cannot continue. This corruption of life must be halted. I am disgusted and riled to the depths of my marrow by it. It will drive me to complete insanity if it continues. I simply cannot go on living my life another moment with out it ceasing. 19
The first thing I'm doing tomorrow morning is going to the hardware store for hinge lubricant and putting and end to the perverse noise that fills this neighborhood daily. It is my duty.20
And I will never escape that imprisoned silent rhythm screeching and clanging inside my head otherwise.21
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