#RetroTuesday June 25, 2024
Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes
Challenge #30 – Favorite Song
Introduction: Way back in the day, everyone loved Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence.” It was an anthem for the baby boom generation, including me. Flash forward to about 2016. I heard a cover of the song by the band Disturbed and it knocked me off my feet – and still does. This story is about that song, but the Disturbed interpretation of it. Maybe I should say my interpretation of their interpretation.
Here are the lyrics for those of you not familiar:
Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
In restless dreams, I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light, I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
“Fools” said I, “You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
Then the sign said, “The words on the prophets are written on the subway walls
In tenement halls”
And whispered in the sound of silence
The Sound of Silence
No one talks to each other anymore. At least not in America. Not in other countries either or so I’ve heard. All we hear is the sound of silence. People who are alone and lonely. Families who have broken apart. Friendships that have been destroyed. Neighbors holding grudges against neighbors.
When people do talk to each other, it is with raised voices and it is a tirade of hate, misunderstanding and evil. So silence has fallen upon the masses.
We’re afraid to disturb that silence. Our society has become so fragile we can hear our world coming apart. The ripping of those societal bonds is silent, but we know and hear it anyway.
We try to talk with them, to reason with them. We might as well stay silent as their neon god has convinced them that it is us against them. All we want to do is save ourselves and our country. They don’t seem to see that we will be destroyed if the silence prevails. How have they been blinded and deafened? Can’t they compare the current state of affairs to history? Instead of dialogue, there is the well of silence.
The silence, like a cancer, stands in the way.
Thanks to athling2001 for hosting this challenge.
The Write Scribe 