A Day of Silence

Today my task was to walk in silent meditation in the city. For six hours I walked slowly, deliberately, every step measured. I said nothing, expressed nothing. I simply walked. And then the city started to open. Sounds, melodic and devilish, washed across my psyche. People I could not see but could feel and hear, talking, laughing, warring, loving. A collective stop of concern as a child injured herself. And relief when she perked up again. Trade and money as people bartered for goods many would never need, and some, the street people, urgently needed. Sounds of vehicles traveling with seeming aimless intent and indeed some were. Radios and motivational tapes and people talking to themselves to faceless acquaintances across a wireless world. And buildings aging and decaying and rebuilding. The imaginations of humans constructed of earth matter and in time returning back to the earth. The weather pushed its way through and around the buildings and the vehicles and the people providing cool respite with an eroding chance of showers to clean up the mess of humanity. Today I walked in silent meditation in the city. I said nothing. But it talked to me. It made me a friend.