Tranquility

RemiIcehaven

by RemiIcehaven

Story

Once upon a time, in a city at the far ends of a far world, sound didn’t exist. The city was calm and quiet. Nothing moved, nothing breathed, leaves didn’t flutter with the wind, people didn’t make noise as they went about their life, and animals didn’t have a sound either. Dogs barked at full moons but no one heard. Cats meowed, and birds chanted, but they made no difference to the silence. Pens didn’t scratch against papers, children didn’t make a noise when they played outside. Radios were never turned on, and musical instruments were neglected in all corners and left to collect dust.

See, the inexplicable muteness happened one autumn morning. It started with the city losing its habitual noises of running coffee machines, cars, and buses. Then it moved on to the sounds of storms, wind, trees, and insects, and finally ended with the people who were left baffled at the sudden silence as they gradually lost their voices one by one. They tried to scream, shout, yell, and curse at the sudden change to no avail. Time and time they tried all sorts of tricks, herbal cures, medications, and rituals, but the sound never came back. Soon, the sound became a myth, and their lives sank into a tranquil, silent existence.

Yet, on a gray morning, perhaps the grayest of them all, the wind blew much harsher than usual. It huffed, puffed, and stormed, maybe howled, but no one heard. It raged further, blew a few laundry lines, a few scarves, and hats, then blew open a window at the highest house on the highest hill in the city to no avail. However, an unattended bag of marbles, in an unattended attic in a small abandoned home, fell to its side. A few dozen marbles rolled down a wooden shelf, rang against a plate, then dropped to the ground. The little glass balls had the colors of a rainbow and the second they hit the floor, they were heard.

The red ones gave off the sound of trumpets that varied with how intense their colors were; the blues were violins and various strings, purple and yellow carried the sound of thundering drums, the oranges gave off the notes of a shy piano, the greens where the sound of rivers, oceans, seas, and nature along with every animal that lived and breathed while the cyan carried the missing voices of a million screams that once called throughout the city. They all erupted at once, loud, intense. They carried all the words that were hidden behind the lack of sound, the songs of a language that was long forgotten. They boomed through the entire city in a quick succession that dispersed as quickly as they started as the marbles came to stop.

Then, there was silence.


© RemiIcehaven 2023-08-21

Genres
Novels & Stories, Humor & Satire
Moods
Dark, Emotional