Asemic Drumming

March 1, 2020

June 22, 2022

It had started off slow. Neither here nor there. It was in the beats between the beats. One little rumor, then nothing at all. It sounded like it was coming from the heating ducts. It was halfway across the world and it would never be here. It started to pick up after a few measures. It clanked, made a little more noise than anyone expected. There was a steady, high pitch that made it feel like the thing was starting to gain momentum, but then it would slow down again and once in a while the beat would drop entirely. Just when it would pick up steam, something would relieve the pressure again, despite the fact that it wanted to keep building the anxiety, heavier than it had before. The fever nearly broke, but then the temperature kept rising. It was waiting for the perfect opportunity for a sucker punch. Some kind of instinct told it to keep its voice in a lower register, just to keep the neighbors from catching wind. Around 7 the melodies burst out the window for a moment. Cheers erupted from their heads while the metal and iron clanked and dinged, soundwaves carrying fast but not so fast that the thing couldn’t keep up. It made a little more noise than anyone expected and a lot less noise than anyone deserved.

The birth of the silence was cool. The brightness was harsh in its rarity. They were all so disoriented, but they would bounce back.

Unsettled,

chaotic, and

in some ways

beautiful, and

at peace

in chaos

for its own sense of order. It could do as it liked and could only be flattened by the limbs of the body moving together in a way that had never been attempted.

It may never be,

attempted again.

Or, certainly not in the same way

though with similar tools a new variation of the same chord may be struck.

At a point in time, it was neon. Reflective, or a symbol to demand care. It had started off slow, but at a point in time, it became neon, reflective.

A symbol too. It demanded care. The fatal mistake could be covered for by stitching patterns, improvising themes that could be held to longer and stronger than anyone thought possible. It was supposed to be an anomaly. Before the instinct arose to let the one hand rest and the other hand take over and to reinvent for the sake of reinvention and to reinvest for whatever could be gained, there was a cathartic peace in the maelstrom. There was a kind of quiet in the brooding madness of this universe. It could shut out voices and it could order the mess.

To communicate is to send something

and for something to be received.

Is it communication if the one sending some thing and the one receiving some thing are one and the same thing?

Once neon, it was used to blind. Once blind, it was used to deafen. Once deaf, it was used to mute. Once mute, deaf, and blind they could no longer be touched, and the only sense left was employed to smell the putrid rot of their own insides. It had started off so slow. It was in the heating ducts. It was in Italy. It was in the mail. It was in the beats between the beats

those brief, lonely spaces where the body is overwhelmed by A)

power, or

B)

Disease.

Order or disorder.

There were moments of contrived beauty, but it was a noisy little number, wasn’t it?

March 29, 2020