There is, perhaps appropriately, no music or sound contained in this entry. Not because it would not be possible; am I lazy? The answer that seems most agreeable is that it is to be imagined rather than heard, or rather for you to hear it through your own wall, not a copy of the sound heard through my wall.
I hear crickets and a train through an open window, but do I hear anything through the wall? This is a more obscure ordeal; the origin of sound cannot quite be sought in the same way. I know the whereabouts of the train track, and am aware of various possible locations of crickets I hear from my open window. Yet, a cricket who has crept indoors and is hidden in a corner of a room is somehow more mysterious and of a coming-from-nowhere quality somehow similar to a cricket heard through a wall. It is because the question that immediately takes hold of you: Where?
It was consciously not thought of; a building's material: in what way will they conduct, transmit and allow sound upon being constructed? This secret desire—for things to sound and resonate—do contractors and builders know of it? Do they know that the sound one floor above will seem like a dropped bowling bowl to the inhabitant one floor below, though it is in fact the work of footsteps? Is this their intention? When a wooden floor is set, was it with eager hope for the gradual creaking and warping?
In turn, all of these unknown and unconscious sounds made; footsteps that only a neighbor can hear, a clanking pipe delivering hot water that keeps you up at night, a whistled tune barely heard, and seemingly without melody—what are they?
At the very least, a chance to really listen; especially those sounds you think you know. That train track; perhaps it has relocated to my rooftop. The birds; have they built their nests in the floorboards?
This is why the fireman slides down the pole; he moves between the levels, hearing those unheard sounds.
Please, walls, groan tonight.
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