The Sound of Silence

Basking in the brilliance of the scorching sun, they did not immediately realise that the whirring, clicking, electric fizzing of the city had been replaced by silence. Hunched over to block out the high noon glare, they continued squinting at their little screens for a moment before they each noticed that they held nothing but a dead weight in their hands. A collective groan rose and spread across the verdant green park, like a Mexican wave. With a sigh, some quickly resigned themselves to the dark age. Others let out strangled cries as they violently pawed at their useless devices in blatant denial, willing them to refresh the page. Devoid of input and the constant buzz of the wireless grid, there was nothing to distract them from the maddening humming whine of quiet. Smugly, an older man sporting a grey tweed flat cap waltzed over to his antique car and began burning a king’s ransom of gasoline in the hopes that the old FM radio might still pick up a signal. But the city was dead.

Each sitting alone, it took a moment for them to build up the courage for a fleeting look upwards. One by one, they tentatively caught each other’s eyes, exchanging bewildered looks with strangers. What now? The unspoken question echoed through the green. A dark-haired girl who had been reclining against a large deciduous tree got to her feet and started down the hill, long skirts trailing behind her. Sixty-something pairs of eyes followed, watching as she pressed the call button for the tram. But the button didn’t light up, and no tram came. Sucking in a breath through clenched teeth, she climbed onto an industrial robo-cleaner that had shut down mid-sweep and, on tiptoes, peeked over the edge. It was no arabesque, her hesitant movements far from graceful. Still, they kept their eyes peeled and watched with bated breath as her fingertips swiped at the maglev’s guiding walls and –

Nothing. No vibrations. Just dead silence. The city had ground to a halt.

With the trams and trains down, they were stranded. Only a handful knew how to drive now, without the autopilot systems. Not that the parked electrics would start up without a live connection anyway. And those with old-world cars – Mister-Smug-Tweed-Cap included – didn’t dare chance the chaos of the roads amongst the already rolling, now ungoverned self-driving systems, running amok without so much as a red light for a warning. Besides, as those close enough to walk had already figured out, they would still be locked out of their smart houses until the power came back on. And, it wasn’t like they’d have anything to do once inside. CDs and paper books, gas stoves and board games were all so antiquated that it didn’t even cross their minds, as they sat about and wondered what people had done before electricity. Instead, they all just sat and stared and waited. There was nothing to do but wait.

They bit their lips and twiddled their thumbs, glancing about nervous or restless or bored. In a full solar city over two decades old, they couldn’t remember another sunny blackout. They looked to the clear skies thinking about how it was so blue and searched for words like cerulean and azure. They moved their hands through the dappled light that filtered through the trees and for the first time in a long time, they looked, actually looked, at the leaves. Perhaps the leaves hadn’t yet fallen at all, or perhaps the ground had already been raked clean. Either way, the autumnal shades of pumpkin and sunflower, chestnut and cinnamon stood in stark contrast to the emerald grass and lush foliage of the evergreens. As wisps of clouds blew in, a young carrot-topped boy pointed and exclaimed.

“That one there, it looks like a plane!”

They followed his finger and chuckled a soft breathy sigh. Some even murmured agreement. The boy reached for his phone, rushing to snap a shot. But without the grid, the screen was dead and cold. Besides, the clouds had blown away and there was nothing left to share. Yet, somehow, he didn’t feel alone in his observation, as a little group gathered round and spoke their comments aloud. And just like that they began to speak and share and like and comment, without the devices, just out loud. Not a captive audience but some kind of community, sharing the experience of being gathered there that day. And the clouds rolled by and they watched together as the wisps twisted and turned into shape, and everything snapped into place.

Hesitantly, one used a bottle as a ball, of sorts, throwing it to another. Drone police blissfully unaware, there was no one to shout when they ignored the neatly placed signs on the grass that forbid any play. Two began to sing, softly at first, and soon joined another. No one minded the break of the silence. Three danced in a circle around the daffodils, moved by the spirit of the song. Then four climbed to their feet and began to run and chase. They played tag, and soon they were five, then six. And so the party grew. For the first time in a good long while, they actually laughed and smiled. And it spread like a contagion, the joy and the happiness until the sound of it filled the silence. And so it went, as the day wore on and the sky turned to watermelon pink. And for the first time in a long time, they heard the chirping of the birds not drowned out by the mechanical noise of a world on the brink of losing its humanity.

Listening to the daylight draw to a close, they lounged in the dewy grass and felt at peace, even as the setting sun stopped warming their skin and left behind a goosebump-inducing chill. Their fingers disappeared into the shadows as their eyes struggled to adjust to the dimming light. They wondered at the mesmerising darkness that none had ever known before, faces shaded in blacks and blues as if each marked with a bruise. The gleam and glimmer of the moon shone bright to light their way. And stars twinkled high above stretching from bay to bay. They huddled together keeping warm and welcoming the night. On the horizon, the city skyline disappeared with the fading light.

Not a single window glowed.