All the sounds in the world disappeared. Nobody knew how it happened or why. The Russians blamed the West. The West suspected a Chinese-Russian conspiracy. The Islamists declared it was a punishment from Allah.
Scientists pointed out that it wasn’t sound that had disappeared but vibrations.
The general public didn’t care for the how and the whys. They just wanted the return of an old friend, lost, but not forgotten.
Music died. The Rolling Stones finally had to retire. The eternal optimist took the positive high ground and pointed to the permanent demise of One Direction. The world at last had something to smile about.
Cinema returned to the silent days. Jim Carrey and John Goodman teamed up to do a series of Laurel and Hardy re-makes. The audience laughed in silent guffaws. Nobody minded the sweet wrapper rustlers, or the popcorn munchers, because there was nothing to mind anymore.
Struggling mime artists used to playing on street corners were suddenly on Broadway and the West End.
The bedroom antics of lovers old and new had to change. Cries of faster, faster, deeper, deeper were lost into the ether. The sweet whisperings from lover to lover in the aftermath of ecstasy were replaced by tender caresses. A finger gently brushing a cheek. A hand running through long tresses.
With all the enforced changes taking place a sense of anticipation started to grow around the world. People came out of their houses, and out of their businesses. They congregated in the streets and waited for something to happen. A palpable sense of something momentous being on the brink of occurring developed into a fervor of yearning. A sense of spiritual awareness gathered around the masses, and they embraced what they realized was nothing more than the sound of silence.
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M. J. Wolfson is a writer with a handful of publication credits. Book collector, autograph hunter, part time lion tamer, and full time fantasist. Assistant Editor at Firewords Quarterly. You can contact him here: http://www.musingsfromplanetwolfson.com/ or here: http://www.firewords.co.uk/
Image by Steve N
Very eerie, M. J. , I like it. When reading it the second time, the writing somehow had a “no sound” quality to it.