The Sound Multiplies

The pen fell from my hand

on the fourth-floor landing.

Just slipped.

Just let go.

It hit the first step and bounced.

Then the next.

Then the next.

Each impact louder than it should have been,

each sound amplified by the concrete,

by the fluorescent light,

by the fact that the space

had been silent until that moment.

The pen was falling through

a kind of cathedral,

a vertical tunnel where

a small object becomes

a major event,

where the regular world's rules

about noise and distance

don't apply.

It clattered.

It bounced down all the steps,

each impact multiplied,

each sound coming back

as if the stairwell itself

was repeating the falling,

was making sure I understood

how much noise

a small thing could make

in the right space.

When it finally stopped,

the silence rushed back in.

But the silence was different now.

It was the silence after sound,

the knowledge that quiet can be

broken so easily,

that the space you thought was empty

is actually full of reverberation,

full of the way sound travels

when there's nothing to stop it.

I didn't go pick up the pen.

I left it at the bottom.

Let someone else

find it there.

Let someone else

experience the small

amplification of the ordinary.