More Voices

     Besides all those more personal voices that I wrote about in that last silly post, there are the booming voices of reality.  When it presents as despair, this voice can be a whisper, a hideous, frightening whisper.  When it presents as doom, this voice can be a roar, a heavy, head pounding roar.  Either way, it adds to the blend of voices that is the cacophony in my head.

      The despair can be heard in the news accounts of lives cut down by gang warfare, in the sirens screaming to rescue hopeless victims of drunk drivers. It can be heard in the cry of a mother when her child is in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is the sound of a respirator as a dad fights his battle against cancer. And did I mention that despair can be heard in the sighs of those who have lost their jobs? And the crush of cash in the pockets of the rich?  Despair sneaks around corners, cutting into my consciousness, making scabs bleed and hearts break. Despair cannot be silenced.
  
     The ear splitting roar of doom is background noise on Earth.  The cracking of polar ice contributes to the roar as climate change breaks weather records.  Ocean waves crashing on polluted shores take the roar up a decibel while the sound of huge saws cutting old growth trees in equatorial Earth take the roar up an additional gazillion decibels.   Gasoline engines discharging noise and air  pollution make the background roar more personal and the the sound of offshore oil wells clanging add a metallic tenor to the roar.  Doom throws a dark cloak over my head, adding weight to my shoulders,  making muscles scream and minds crack.  As with despair, doom cannot be silenced.

     With all this noise in my head, it is a wonder that I can sleep at night. But I can sleep at night because with sleep comes silence. Holy and blessed silence.