shut up.

i think, at this point, you should shut up and just listen. i want you to listen to that sound that is coming from the old light bulbs overhead, and listen to the way your ears want to turn their reception off. listen to the sound of nothing in particular, because when you shut up, you can hear what is actually happening. if you shut up, you can hear the eerie sounds of cars being driven to insignificant places, rushing down the street to catch that turn of yellow light. but it does not really matter, because this is a small town, and it is past midnight, and there are probably no other cars near you. unless, there is a police car behind you.

but there is no police car behind you. you do not hear one, even if you do shut up.

some cars drive slowly. they take their time going down the road, the rubber against the cement that is too hard and hot for bare feet to walk on, and too rough for soft knees to fall on. they have no problem going slow, because they do not need to feel like they are flying on land. if you shut up right now, you can hear one go by on the road visible from your window when the leaves die and fall come autumn. then another one, going slightly faster. it sounds like a turning jump rope going over your body. then another one, slower and slower. red light. green light.

the light bulbs remind you of the time you stuck your finger into the electric socket behind the television shelf. you probably cried a little, but you have no memory of that actually happening. what you remember is what your mother told you. she told you that one day, when you were little, you stuck your finger into the electric socket behind the television shelf. you have no memory of that actually happening. but it would make sense to remember that you were shocked, and electricity went through that finger, and you cried from the unexpected unlasting pain the way children do when they experience unexpected unlasting pain.

and behind the sound of moving cars, you can hear time. that does not actually make sense, but you know that time does move, or at least, people say time passes. and you know that when something moves, it most likely makes some kind of sound. you do not always hear the sounds, but it makes sense that the sounds still do exist. when people ask unanswerable questions, it makes sense that you have no satisfactory answers. when people ask you, "if a tree falls in a forest, but no one is there to hear it, does it still make a noise?" you give them a blank look after briefly thinking about a tree falling down unto the leafy earth. it makes a horrendous sound as its wooden life breaks and its fibers shred themselves into forced separation, landing broken with indignity and death. you see it falling down, and you hear it falling down. you wonder why the people said no one was there to hear it fall, because you heard it fall just now. you heard the noises it made over eleven seconds, the noises of an unprompted, imagined but authentic death. and you still hear the little noises of the dried leaves cracking off under the weight of the fallen wooden soul, now. brittle sounds produced by unexpected unlasting pain.

yes. it makes a noise.

and time moves. warping like that unmicrowaveable plastic plate you placed in the microwave, melting as it stands still on a turning table. it is being made to dance one last number before you realize your mistake and push the open button without pressing "clear" first. you do not feel the microwaves hitting your face but they do. you look with a look on your face as you smell the plastic scent of the death of an unmicrowaveable plate. it looks hideously beautiful. and that should not make sense, but it does, because you know what it means to look hideously beautiful. you know what it means to be warped in time and to melt in heat. you were made to dance once, before you were broken down and became hideously beautiful.

so, time moves like that. you do not see it move just like you do not hear the tree fall. but you do see and hear the light bulbs wearing out, singing in that hideously beautiful voice as they burn through thousands of hours without rest. and you hear those rubber wheels tear themselves up on cement roads. when they hit a bump, you hear them give a shout from their hollow guts. it calms you in a disturbing way to know that when they have traveled over enough roads, that unexpected unlasting pain disappears. 

if you shut up, you can hear all of that.