It was a beautiful day out there : the sun was shining, birds were singing. Early spring already held the promise of a glorious summer, and as he walked out on to the street, the wonderful warmth of the sun bathed him in golden waves.
Today would be a a lazy day, he'd decided. And so, and seemingly at random, he wove in and out of the city's streets, stopping here and there wehn necessary. On one such stop. he bought something to eat later on, as well as water to keep him from becoming parched.
After walking for a while underneath the sweltering yellow globe above, he made his way into the garden. By sheer dint of its verdant nature, it kept temperatures just a tad cooler, and that was good.
Fir, ash, oak and pine greeted him, were all around him. He walked by the solitude of trees, crouched near a forlorn bramble where a small cat had disappeared into seconds earlier : he wanted to see if it was still there, or at least nearby. He inserted one hand in the shrubbery, pushed it aside, but the cat was gone. When he made to remove his hand, he pricked his thumb on a blackbriar thorn. He sucked at it for a bit, and sure enough, the bleeding soon stopped.
Walking on, and past an artificially engineered stream of water where ducks and various other fowl lounged and swam to and fro, he slowly - but steadily - made his way to the amphitheatre. In the open air, beneatht the blue sky, savouring the sun, and spread somewhat thin all over the amphitheatre, sat a dozen or two other souls. Some just sat, their feet resting on the seats in front of them, their eyes closed, their faces turned skywards. Younger people studied what might have been quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore. Not far from him, a beautiful girl sat listening to music, whilst writing down on a notebook. Soon, he sat down and rested.
So rested he, by the shade of the lemon tree, that after a score of minutes of idle thinking, he looked inside his shopping bag : he took out the bottle of water, and a small plastic container with cherry tomatoes. He unscrewed the cap, and drank eagerly from the water. Afterwards, he opened the container, removed the thin plastic film, tipped the bottle over it, let it pour down over the tomatoes, and the water fell on the cobblestones from the orifices in the container. He lay everything on the seat next to him, and every now and again, he'd remove a tomato, and proceed to eat.
They tasted of earth, still, and this made them all the more delicious. In his mind he could imagine torrential rains falling over the plains whence these small, red orbs once grew, imbuing them with the taste of the very earth around them, over them. Under the sun, and with the insects buzzing and droning all around him, he almost dozed, almost surrendered to the day's sweetness. But the shrill cry of a bird flying above lurched him into sudden wakefulness.
Weary, he understood at last a fundamental truth that had been eluding him. It wasn't something that couldn't be rightly put into words, because it was an internal action; it was as if gears had shifted, and he suddenly realized that something was different, that something within him had changed.
It was time. It was time, and he no longer cared, no longer wanted to hold it in. It's time to break down. Yes, a breakdown, of a sort, but the sort that you need to go through before you can start picking up the pieces again, and reassemble yourself anew.
And so he let it all out.
[In another world, in another life, he'd have stared a bit longer at the beautiful girl and noticed that her purse was a perfect match for his jacket. He'd have found a way to make conversation with her, and then mention this. She'd agree, and they'd laugh. Then, just before he left, he'd tell her that if she wanted it, she could keep the jacket. It'd fit her just fine, she'd look amazing in it. She'd reply that she couldn't possibly take it, but he'd insist so much that eventually she'd give in. She would thank him, and just before he made to leave, she'd offer to give him something in return. It was now his turn to decline, but she moved closer, so much closer, and kissed him full on the lips. And he'd wonder why she had done such a stupid thing.]
I've found a way to make you free : kill that sound!
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