You can't find me. You can't catch me.
You don't even know where to start looking. That's your whole
problem: you are looking. You
aren't listening.
I am walking across
the country on the sounds of children laughing, of adults gossiping,
of parents worrying, of babies crying and people screaming and
everything in between. I am walking on waves.
I was like you
once. I lived a normal life. I had a normal job. I woke up in the
morning and I went to my normal job and I came home and I did
everything I was supposed to do. I ate and I slept and I shit. I was
like you all are, a biological machine, a thing made of flesh and
water and electrical impulses.
And then they came
to me. The Lords of Shouting, the Masters of Howling. They had no
bodies, no need for food or sleep. Without bodies, they lived as
vibrations in the air, a sound unlike anything I had heard before.
They
offered to make me like them: to strip away the meat, to make my soul
sing. How could I
refuse them? How could I turn down their generous offer?
I can't tell you
that it didn't hurt. Of course it hurt. It was like dying. My skin
was stripped away, then my muscle, then every layer until I was only
bones. And then my bones turned to dust and I was left with nothing.
Nothing except myself.
I was finally free
and for the first time, I could see what I had been missing. I had
never known true freedom. I had always been encumbered by walls and
floors and distance. To see something, I would need to open my eyes,
to turn and hope my vision wasn't hindered (not to mention the fact
that I wore glasses).
I have no eyes now,
but I see much farther and much better. I can move at the speed of
sound. I can hop and skip across cities and towns. I can see what
people say. And if I feel in the mood, I can wrap myself around them
and give them a show.
You've seen my
work. The first few times, I hadn't meant to do it. It was
involuntary – one moment they were alive and so delighted to hear
my symphony, the next they were on the floor, blood pouring from
their ears. Too much of a good thing.
And then I decided
that I liked it. If people could not live like this – and the Lords
of Shouting are very picky in choosing who to change – then I could
at least show them what they were missing. Even if doing that makes
them hemorrhage, even if they die, at least their last moments shall
be filled with sound and fury.
And that's why you
can't catch me. Because I am sound and fury and I am nothing. I was
never there at all.
