Geology of an Absence

Geology of an Absence Voice: Close. Dry. No reverb. "Listen... silence has a texture. It scratches." The ceramic cup. Chipped at the rim. Your index finger used to run over it. Always. A tic. The coffee cools. Oily surface. Skin. I counted the popping bubbles. Four. Five. Light filters through the blind. Zebras on the Formica table. Your keys. Thrown into the terracotta bowl. The sharp impact. Clap. The sound of your footsteps in the hallway. Heel. Toe. Heel. Toe. Then the door. The pneumatic slam. Pssst. Clap. The void sucks in the air. My eardrums crack. "I'm coming." Just that. The MP3 compression eats away the high frequencies. Your breath becomes sand. I reread it. I listen to it. I scratch it under my fingernail. The timeline is frozen. Frozen on your name. I can hardly imagine. Not the future. No. The immediate present. The space between your shoulder blades when you sleep on your stomach. The weight of your hand on my thigh. Dead. Heavy. Hot. I can hardly imagine the geometry of your absence. The volume of air you displaced. The displacement of water. The sound of your throat when you swallow. Gulp. A concrete sound. Organic. Irreversible. I can hardly imagine. And it gnaws at my fingers. The phone screen. Cold blue. 3:14 a.m. Three dots dancing. Appearance. Disappearance. You type. You delete. You hesitate. The cursor blinks. Heartbeat metronome. Notification. Beep. "OK." Two letters. A full stop. Full stop. I zoom in on your profile picture. Pixels. Squares. Compression artifacts. Your eyes. Black. 100% opacity. I can't see into them anymore. Skin smoothing. Beauty filter. Digital lie. I want the texture. The wrinkle at the corner of your eye. The scar on your chin. I want the background noise. The street. The wind. Life. But the file is clean. Sterile. Dead. The call history. A neon spine. Missed call. 2:22 PM. 6:05 PM. 10:11 PM. I touch the screen. Cold glass. Greasy fingerprints. My fingers slide. Search for texture. Find flatness. Technology has killed distance. It has killed longing. It has left the void bare. Raw. Scentless. I can hardly imagine. The dissolution of us into binary data. Zero. One. Zero. One. Where is the breath? Where is the hesitation? In which sector of the hard drive does your scent sleep? I can hardly imagine the wear and tear of time on your voice. The grain thickening. The break in the high notes. I try to touch the sound. To feel it. To hold onto it. But the sound leaks out. Through the holes in the headphones. Through the mesh of the file. I can hardly imagine. I'm deaf to you. (Silence. Cut. *Click.*) White noise. Shhhhhh. Low frequencies. Rumble. Vibration in the sternum. Tape loop. Loop. "I'm coming. I'm coming. I'm coming. I'm..." Time-stretching. The voice slows down. Becomes monstrous. Deep. Inhuman. Granular synthesis. Your voice reduced to dust. To grains of sand. I clench my fist. I want to catch the grains. They slip through my fingers. Sssss. The tape recorder eats the tape. Crrr. Crrr. Mechanical mechanism seizing up. Engine coughing. Abrupt stop. Clack. Absolute silence. High-pitched tinnitus. Beep. My own breathing. Inhale. Exhale. The only sound left. Mine. Insufficient. I can hardly imagine... That you're nothing more than a digital ghost. A fingerprint on a glass. A hair on the pillow. A recorded sound wave. Lost in the cloud. I can hardly imagine... (Dry, raw, unprocessed voice, center) ...that I'm no longer inventing you. All I can hear now is the sound of my fingers on the table. Tap. Tap. Tap. I can hardly imagine. The silence. Full. Of you. Recorder: Stop. Click. A whoosh of air. Fridge. Click. The End. Join Member:    / @mobiljos   #carnews Web News http://www.kartininews.com