When I was seventeen, I read a book called ″madness and civilization″ by some philosopher, and at the time I did not get it. I thought I did, but I profoundly didn′t. The idea that there existed a counter logic in insanity that simply couldn′t be coherently communicated felt right to me, sure, but only so far as the anti-conformism it carried within itself was appealing to my youthful self. For as much as I wanted to agree, I could not truly buy into it on the terms of what is was presenting; what worth was truth if it couldn′t be communicated after all? Not that this is particularly relevant, but the years of journalism that have passed between being that kid and now must have rotted my mind to a point where setting stories up this way is a reflex beyond my conscious control. An ossified stylistic touch. It′s... sort of difficult to reconcile the idea of conscious control with the actions I took that day and since, but this tangent too isn′t all that important. Not much is nowadays, though I want to be very clear that I have not gone insane. If anything, I have learned what it is to be sane in the first place, all thanks to that woman and her... Let me start over. All of this began at a lab in Orfield ″the quietest place on earth″. By no means is the isolation room underreported on, however it′s the kind of story that ″gets clicks″ as my younger colleagues say and the experience-account format allows for a bit more self-expression than most of my day to day reporting. In addition, I got a free trip out of the article which made the endeavor a genuinely good deal. The plan was pretty simple: I would go to the lab, spend some time alone in the silence-chamber as they allow journalists to do and make a turgid attempt to break the record time as everyone thinks they could without problem, fail and earn some money with my navel-gazing. Easy enough, right? how could I possibly have messed up? Let us just say that I didn′t have to enter the lab to experience what true silence feels like, to be ripped out of the world of sensations entirely. The woman was dressed rather plainly, middle eastern and with very short hair, but it was her fierce gaze that pulled me toward where she sat when I left the station. Not for a second do I believe she blinked during our encounter and could sooner be convinced that the eye spray painted on the wall behind her did so. It wasn′t an action her face struck me as capable of. Do you know about that study that showed how people come up with rationalizations for why they did something after the fact? It′s a result of imperfect communication between the hemispheres and really quite fascinating, though I only drew that connection later and am rather certain it is a rationalization in itself. For all I know I suddenly found myself standing directly in front of what I assumed at the time to be a homeless woman and decided that the only reason I could have had for this was that I wanted to give her money. As you well know, my pockets have never run deep, but charity is still something I occasionally engage in. Without there being a hat or bowl or anything of the likes, I simply extended my hand with the change, waiting for her to take it and feeling a tad awkward since the more I thought about it, her sitting on the ground was the only cue I had that she might be a beggar. The augur shook her head. Nothing more, but I suddenly knew that this was what she was. More than that: The fact suddenly seemed as obvious as the color of the sky and the idea that I could have not known once drifted rapidly into the terrain of the absurd. I sat down. She had concluded that I understood and no longer bothered with the gestures, with the pretense that she had to move any muscle at all to convey her desires. And her desire was for me to sit. To sit and to listen. At first it was faint, barely noticeable beneath the sounds of the station, the traffic, and the voices, but as I focused, as she stared into me, the silence beneath grew louder and more noticeable. That absolute vastness of pure lack which society tried with such verve to drown out, but which would always be there. Only distracted from but never truly gone, waiting for the day that our efforts should be exhausted. It was beautiful. Were there still need for signals I assume she would have nodded approvingly, but instead she simply allowed me to look through her eyes, to behold all of creation in its frozen, crystalline quiet. It was an easy task now that the interference was gone. Simply a thought, first in one hemisphere than another, first in my head than in hers. The idea that is me considered by another with the instruments to make me see. I saw you, talking over coffee with one of your tennis friends and I saw galaxies dying. I saw the sun rise above the horizon of a planet at the very edge of existence and I saw the Orfield lab experimenting with that risible little thing they called silence. I saw and understood it all... then I rose. It felt insulting to use such a crude instrument as language to thank her and she knew of my gratitude regardless, so I left wordlessly and without looking back. Not much thought went into me quitting afterward. It simply felt the right thing to do and I must admit that I have been somewhat lost since. Adrift. I would not call it soul searching and much less a ″midlife crisis″, as my former colleagues have chosen to classify my actions, since there is no point in searching for something whose whereabouts you know precisely and since I do not believe I have ever been farther from crisis. I do wonder if I should seek it out however. The silence. Sometimes, when I stand very still and focus, I can hear it.