Silence

It is dry here in the mountains of Morocco, so there are few insects, few birds. There is the scuttling sound of a beetle, or a cricket from time to time, maybe a lizard will come out to warm himself in the sun but he makes no noise. Some people must have found themselves enchanted by the silence. I can imagine it drawing them further and further away from roads, from people, from animals, further up into the hills. There they wander alone until the silence invades their thoughts to the point that even the whirlwind between their ears is calmed. They remain this way until it becomes overwhelming, weighing on them so that they sing or bang rocks together just to hear something again. It is either that or go insane.

The noise brings others who were also enchanted up into the hills and after a while they group together. The talk to fill the silence, telling stories about that time when they first heard nothing, and how nothing became the thing that they most wanted to hear.

Then they leave each other to find the silence again, but are drawn back to meet with others when it becomes too much. These are the waves that are found in the desert, men and women pulling together to break the silence, pulling away to find it again, back and forth. Maybe this is why today we have nomads, why some people choose to stay in the hills. They know that there are things out there that might be useful, or helpful. They curse their need for silence every time they have a toothache and can find no way to ease the pain in the hills, but what is a little pain when one can have the purest silence that was ever found on Earth?