heartbeat

I've always liked the sound of silence. The absence of sound is the catalyst for ideas and the perfect condition for success. Or so I always thought. Some will use music to bring ideas to light. Lyrical words rush into their ears and morph into new ones as they flow out onto a page. I've never been that way. Even the pouring sounds of soothing rain or deep, dark thunderclaps irritate me. Oh how I wish the calming waves of a blue, powerful ocean could help me sleep or get anything done. That the constant turning of a fan's white noise would clear my head. That even the own sound of my familiar heartbeat wouldn't distract my ever-thinking mind. Perverting the eloquent words into utter nonsense. Every time I sit at my blank, soundless desk hoping to get work done, success only comes when the morning bells from the chapel down the street stop their incessent humming. I envy those who can see clear through the madness.

Once when I was a kid I was in a car crash. My dad, typically a wreckless driver (and drinker, though that's not relevant,) slammed his head on the steering wheel. Blood fell from an open wound slashed across his forehead and dripped down on his hand, still gripping the top of the wheel. I, too, slammed by head though it was on the popped, white airbag expanded in front of me. I'll never forget the piercing sound of my ears ringing. The ringing flooded my head. It went into every crevace of my brain petrifying any thought I could have had. Even the words of "what do I do" seemed too impossible to think. I just sat there and waited. Waited for the ringing to come to an end so I could reach over and feel my fathers pulse. To call 911 or to yell out for help. But I couldn't. The embodying sound of constant ringing froze me in that moment. And after the sky had fell and darkness surronded us, I heard the red and blue sirens echoing around me. Hugging my body so tight that I couldn't quite breath.

That was the first time that the sound of my own heartbeat bothered me. That I could feel the cool blood pumping out of my heart and rushing through my veins. I still hear that blood everyday. I think that's why the noise bothers me, freezes me. Time stops a second everytime my heart contracts.

When the sirens reached us I felt hands pulling my weak body out of the passenger seat and onto a stretcher. I could see the mouths of the paramedics moving, creating words, but I couldn't quite make out what those words were. The ringing was still attacking my brain. I was trying to fight it off, I was, I swear, but the ability to move and think was still beyond me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see my father on his own stretcher. I could see the EMT's faces fall as they pulled out their stethescopes and felt his no longer beating heart, and suddenly the ringing became worse. It was so loud, so agonizing that it was the last thing I remembered in that moment.

When I woke up I was in a small, white hospital room. The ringing was gone, but replaced with the beeping of machines. These machines were attached to me, and the picture on the screen matched with the strident sounds of my beating heart. I was so stuck that I couldn't even open my eyes. The sounds of beeps and blood kept me from opening them. When I finally gained the strength, and the courage, I watched my fearful mother walk to the doctor outside of my room. Her hair was wild and her eyes knew only fear. She was clutching her purse and the small hand of my baby brother. Soon after a nurse came and scooped up my brother, and the doctor asked her to sit in the chair adjacent to my white little room. One hand on her shoulder, he delievered the news. Now, a new deafening sound flooded into my head. The screams and crys of a newly widowed mother. She fell to the floor, still screaming, and when she finally looked into my little white room, her eyes met mine. And although the screams stopped, I could still hear them.

At the funeral I watched as my mother delievered the eulogy. Her hair was still untamed and she had tears falling from her eyes. When it was my turn to speak I walked my skinny legs up to the front of the room, and unfolded the piece of notebook paper crumpled in my jacket pocket. As I began to scan the words I had written, all that filled my head was the utter nonsense of interuppted thoughts. I could still hear the vociferous screams of a scared mother, the echoing sounds of red and blue, the incessant ringing, and of course my fucking heartbeat. No words left my mouth that day, in front of all those people.

I knew my mother blamed me. For the petrified state that I couldn't quite break out of that day. For the phone inches away from my hand while I sat there for hours while the sun went by. That if I had blocked out the invisible noise for two minutes, less even, to reach for it and dial those three important digits, that maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't have all put on our black dress clothes that day. That we'd still be a family. One with a father and a mother, and a daughter who didn't fail the man who gave her life. "Such a gift," my mother always said.

I still sit at my soundless desk, hoping to get my work done. But no matter how expensive the noise-cancelling headphones I wear on my head are, I can still hear the sounds from that day. Screams, red and blue, ringing, and that fucking heartbeat. They keep me from work, from getting anything done. And I wish that once, just once, I could be wrapped in silence like a baby in a soft pink blanket. Tucked away in a pretty bassinet with nothing to worry about. Who could scream herself if she wanted to because her parents, both of them, loved her enough to coax her back sleep.