Waking the dead
There are still ten minutes until the year of the PIG should officially be rung in, and yet, Mike and I feel as if we're stuck in the worst thunderstorm of our lives. We made it safely back to Wuhan this late afternoon and even managed to get a massage in this evening before the incredible explosions began. I think we made it back to my apartment around 6:45pm and even then it was loud and heart stopping. What I'm experiencing right now, I've never in my life heard.
The noise. The incredible, earth-shattering NOISE. All kinds of explosions going off in a sort of oxymoronic cacophonous union. There are the loud, ground-moving bellows into the sky, which boom and then spray colorful shapes of light that bloom like radiant flowers. There are the eardrum splitting firecrackers that snatch the calm right out of your marrow. And then there are the fifty varieties in between to fill in the void like the violas and oboes of a wake-the-dead orchestra. Only these noise-fillers find the crevices of your mind that fear such an uproar and make your spine tingle and your hair stand on end.
My poor friend must be exhausted from our trip because he is SLEEPING through all of this. He said only minutes ago, "Give me two minutes" and now, I can hear the even breathing of sleep. A second ago, at what must have been 12:01am, I heard the shrill shriek of one of my fellow teachers up here on the fourth floor, experiencing this madness from our roof. I believe the pandemonium has reached its zenith - although the sound is still unbearably loud and frightening when not directly viewing the colorful blooms in the sky - there seems to be a waning in the chaos.
I feel the only way I can describe this intensity is to conjure the worst thunderstorm of my life. Now, when YOU'RE trying to compare it, think of the longest thunder roll you've ever heard and magnify it by twenty and prolong it by 1000. There are scuffles outside my door, as if my neighbors are either running from the din or trying to catch the last of its intensity. I keep remembering that I'm experiencing all of this INDOORS. My walls and windows rattle and the cars in the street continue voicing their dissent via the toots and shrieks of their car alarms. Every moment when I think the orchestra is finishing up; another fusillade is ignited across the sky from seven vantage points.
It DOES seem to be waning for real this time. Mike was going to stay up all night, as he leaves for the airport at 5am this morning, but I think that plan is long gone. I wonder if he's dreaming the loudest dream of his life tonight? Maybe he's dreaming of lucky pigs performing a pot and kettle medley under a rain-drenched roof.
The noise. The incredible, earth-shattering NOISE. All kinds of explosions going off in a sort of oxymoronic cacophonous union. There are the loud, ground-moving bellows into the sky, which boom and then spray colorful shapes of light that bloom like radiant flowers. There are the eardrum splitting firecrackers that snatch the calm right out of your marrow. And then there are the fifty varieties in between to fill in the void like the violas and oboes of a wake-the-dead orchestra. Only these noise-fillers find the crevices of your mind that fear such an uproar and make your spine tingle and your hair stand on end.
My poor friend must be exhausted from our trip because he is SLEEPING through all of this. He said only minutes ago, "Give me two minutes" and now, I can hear the even breathing of sleep. A second ago, at what must have been 12:01am, I heard the shrill shriek of one of my fellow teachers up here on the fourth floor, experiencing this madness from our roof. I believe the pandemonium has reached its zenith - although the sound is still unbearably loud and frightening when not directly viewing the colorful blooms in the sky - there seems to be a waning in the chaos.
I feel the only way I can describe this intensity is to conjure the worst thunderstorm of my life. Now, when YOU'RE trying to compare it, think of the longest thunder roll you've ever heard and magnify it by twenty and prolong it by 1000. There are scuffles outside my door, as if my neighbors are either running from the din or trying to catch the last of its intensity. I keep remembering that I'm experiencing all of this INDOORS. My walls and windows rattle and the cars in the street continue voicing their dissent via the toots and shrieks of their car alarms. Every moment when I think the orchestra is finishing up; another fusillade is ignited across the sky from seven vantage points.
It DOES seem to be waning for real this time. Mike was going to stay up all night, as he leaves for the airport at 5am this morning, but I think that plan is long gone. I wonder if he's dreaming the loudest dream of his life tonight? Maybe he's dreaming of lucky pigs performing a pot and kettle medley under a rain-drenched roof.
