Listening through the days and nights

Budhaditya Chattopadhyay

An excerpt from this listening journal was published in the curated compilation (c​)ovid’s metamorphoses

1.

Morning, and its internal machineries fall apart when the postman presses the numb buttons of the calling bell. On the bed lies the corpse of the departed night wearing the masks of the midnight’s fox, and the crows from the last afternoon. There are marks of blood on the quilt. The somnolent hands swim through the morning fog to reach the doorstep. Sounds of church-bell refracts through the walls, even though today is not a Sunday. The sun, however, breaks through the windowpane and triggers the intentionality of the awakening. A drop of water runs down from the eyes as it says goodbye to the withering dreams. The body moves making the idle bones and sluggish joints sound the arrival of a new day. 

2.

The day grows older with the sound of the sunlight. A carriage enters the space between the bed and the bathroom. Its engine sounds loud; and heavy smokes come out of it.  There is a shadow of an obsolete man on the doors of the bathroom. Thoughts and experiences have left marks on his skin. The body and the bathroom’s wall, afterward, ask each other about their health. In the sound of the shower, slowly emerge consciousness and the skeleton of a fear. The mirror reflects the day’s schedules, as the time starts breathing over the shoulder. 

3.

The calm coffee-cup on the kitchen table has been enthusiastic about the day’s Anthropogenic potential. The electric mug hisses out in support. Fruits, bread and butter gather for a celebration of the morning. Spoons and the coffee powder wait for instructions. Boiling water over the thirsty coffee produces emotionless foam, suggesting that inside waking up, in fact, there is enormous fun frozen. Cornflakes try to make friends with bread and butter. Through these activities, the news from the radio and the alarm of the smartphone are heard. In the no man’s land between nations, war has been announced. Tanks and a flock of bomber aircrafts forward march through the corridor. There is little space inside the kitchen; hence, many more news and announcements wait outside the door.  

A half-eaten piece of bread and leftover apple turn cold as the remains of coffee mark the cusp of a cup at the corner of the working desk. In the center of the table rests a silent and solitary computer screen. Its white walls and black stairs await the voices of many masked faces. The warmth of the sun recedes over the indolent fingers. The melancholic city, afterward, reclines on the window. The keypad remains unanswered over the questions of labor and state power. 

Hunger evaporates from the kitchen utensils. Wayward clouds fly away over the sundry vegetables, potato, rice in a timid bowl, and lentils. Beside the gas oven, the distant bells and innocent sirens are heard again. Firstly, cut the vegetables on an indifferent plate. Then throw wet onions and garlic into an arrogant frying pan. By mixing quantitative tiredness and spurts of spontaneity, the food gets cooked. As the soup boils, the day’s assassin leaves through the backdoor. The disconcerted birds cry foul. On the stainless pan, the sweaty pieces of meat start to burn. The tireless sounds of the afternoon eat up everything – including the lonely terrace, confused rows of the crows, and drying clothes in the balcony. 

The looming eyes rest motionless on the computer screen. The last letter left a long time ago. The screen saver burns like the silent night crickets. A few directionless cars pass by the window. A cat crosses the cemetery and walks past the road. Her sensual grace covers the pebbles on the street. Late afternoon’s melancholia slowly takes over the day’s longings. The disappearing sun leaves the last love letter to the windowpane. The orchid in the tub, the water bottle, half-drunk glass and the pencil recline on the terrace with a death consciousness. 

7.

Daylight gently dies out. A stranger wind passes over the graveyard. The birds retire soundless. The leaves stop moving and signal the descending of the evening. In a distant window a solitary maiden lit a cigarette and leans through the railing to see how far the city has arrived, and how much is left for darkening of the decks in the nearby jetty. The water’s green turns black. The unseen rumbles from the sea reverberate through the window, and the glass breaks away. The streetlights start staring one by one and cast shorter shadows of people leaving work. There’s smell of gunpowder in proximate spaces between the lovers. Emptiness hovers inside the room; a door opens and closes behind an empty corridor; whose shadow trembles on the wall? Is it the face of the death? 

8.

A stronger light is resting on the table. No one is waiting for anyone in this circle of glow. The cat completes her supper with the bones of the night, and then her tails move in a pleasant anticipation for the helpless rats to fall into her pray. After a long time, tonight the full moon has endeavored to erase the fear of death from the rooftop. An intensifying techno-acoustics has suggested that there is a party at the balcony. Even the lone wolfs have rushed towards collective pleasure. The aggressive young lady has thrown empty beer bottles on the wall of wanted noise. Sound of the bottles has overwhelmed the broken neck of the melancholic young man. After a long time, tonight death has seen her face in the mirror. She learnt the knowledge of the unspoken. The resonance of grief transforms, afterward, as bits and pieces of lived dreams plummet throughout the night. Its sounds are reborn as words that are distilled from lonely listening.  

9.

The midnight rain starts to move towards the façade. The walls inside the house crunch and one corridor evaporate into another. The vocabulary of the acoustics is not enough equipped to decipher the meaning of the polyrhythmic sounds of incessant rain on the lived windowpanes.  Their grammatical and syntactical errors are hanging over the mosquito net at this hour. Even if the eleven continuous bells and seven chimes are ringing around the right ear, there is still no victim of sleep. In this deliberate attempt to overcome the drunkenness, the end of the carpet is found to be flying and bathroom door is just around the corner. As sleep is estranged, the episodic water drops from bathroom enter the aural presence. These are all empty words, after all; listening doesn’t turn into resonant illuminations. Rain stops. Insomniac bats announce the first sun.