silence: story 2

"Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together." Thomas Hardy

Cuernavaca is full of noises. Every shop is fronted by a p.a. system playing cheesy music for mexican lovers., which blend into a melee of heartfelt sentiments competing for your attention.

A twitch of the ear and a girl is bellowing a sales pitch for underwear, framed by a piece of plywood with weather yellowed Y-fronts nailed up in faded glory.

Distracted once more by a lad with a plastic pumpkin head to celebrate the halloween-corrupted "dia des muertos" (day of the dead). "un peso signor....ooon Pay-soh"

Gently rebuffed, his pleas are replaced by vexed car horns signalling their displeasure. A trolley load of childrens dolls, with distressing and garish faces,has spilled into the crossroads. The traffic policeman mouths something, but is masked by the belly-thud from a souped-up rustbucket with go-faster stripes. The backseat is burdened by a speaker with a bass cone the size of a the livi bowl and an empty bottle of corona where the tweeter once called home.

Searching for a higher octave to balance the growl, i am assailed by the tandy mixer FX from an autobus de morelos , who´s blurb claims it is "driving towards a better Cuernavaca".

No time is afforded to mull over such patent irony, as I am stepping trhough the door of my hotel. A shrill electronic beep denotes my arrival to the ever-giggling sisters at the reception desk, who smile while quizzing me about an unpaid soda. All this to the tune of a screaming child with a snotty nose, who poked me in the leg on the way out.

I fall asleep for what seems like minutes, yet the darkness leaking in the window proves me false. There´s a sound, which i just can´t seem to place.

I grab my board and tiptoe out, heading for the biggest hill in town. The place is dead.

That sound confessed to me upon waking, that embrace of absence and peace, was silence. The canvas is unspoiled, and i fill it with colours of my own; tracing and sketching down the long smooth road.

The noises are all mine, until tomorrow.