"Yes, you do know."

"Huh?"

"You do know."

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"You have others."

"Yes, I do have others." I admitted. "That reminds me, my wife, my companion, one of my others, told me to tell you 'hello.' So, well, 'hello' from my wife."

"Thank you. You love her?"

"Yes, more than I thought possible."

"And there are others?" the voice continued, after a slight pause.

"Yes, I have two children. Two boys. I love them very much too. Do you have a family, loved ones? Do you know love?"

"Yes, I know love. Yes, I have others."

Then it came to me. A thought. In my slow, infantile and feeble, human brain, I had a thought. "Why are you here?"

The voice answered quickly, "To commune with my loved ones, and to be."

"To be?" I questioned. It was to open ended for my tastes. To vague. "Do you have a purpose? A meaning to your life? Are you even alive?"

"I told you my purpose."

"Yes, to commune with your loved ones. Who are they? Who are your loved ones?"

"You are one. I have many."

Vague. Again. But it made me think. This was a representation, a literary device in my mind for how I was experiencing a small piece of nature in a larger unnatural area. Why did it hit me like this here? Why was I hearing it now? Was it because the juxtaposition of the sound of the water and the sound of the freeway and busy road in the distance pointed it out with more clarity? I was a part of nature, and this was the first piece with any character that I'd seen between my hotel and the training center. Me. It was there to commune with me. It was here for me, in a way, and I was here for it, in the same way. We were a part of each other, we were related by a bond that was deeper than blood.

It was the next to the last day of my training, and I was walking to the class in the cool of the morning. Lost in my own thoughts, tired, and mind clouded with the information from the class, I almost walked over the bridge without even noticing the brook. Then, quite abruptly, I stopped and looked over the railing, down into the lush garden that I had espied on the first day.

"I am still here." I heard in my minds ear.

"I know. I was just surprised at how quickly the impression of you faded from thought, faded from my mind. Why is that?" I questioned.

"Speed. Your kind move too fast. Make too much noise. You don't stop as often as you once did."

"This is true. We have built so much, learned so much, and are still learning, but we're leaving you behind aren't we?"

"No. We're still here, and always will be. You are slowly coming back. Slowly remembering the important things."

"You know, what I'm learning in my class is diametrically opposed to the very thought of you. It doesn't even mean anything to you. Do you know why I do it? Why I learn things that I'm not interested in, that I don't even enjoy"

"No."

"So I can help you. In some small way, I hope to help you."

"Do I need help?"

"No, you need us to remember you. To commune with you, to be with you more often, to respect you." I paused. "Do you hear that?"

"What?"

"That thrumming in the distance that sounds like the low pitched buzzing of a billion bees?"

"Yes."

"That's a freeway. On that freeway hundreds of thousands of people drive back and forth, to and fro, to jobs, houses, apartments, wherever the need to go. They listen to music, they roll the windows up, anything to shut out the noise that they are themselves creating. We have become afraid of silence, and you are silent, most of the time. We fear your loved ones, the ones on four legs that stray into our housing developments, even though they have just as much right to be there, as we do."

"How will what you're learning help people to stop and listen?"

"What I do pays well." I said, simply.

"Pay?"

"Never mind. What I mean is, it will allow me a little bit of freedom teach my own loved ones how to commune with you, to be with you and respect you. It will lower the amount of power and petrochemicals we have to take from you. Technology is a double edged sword, you see. It can hurt as much as help. I'll do my best to help, in whatever way I can. Do you understand?"

"No."

I paused. Worked up, I suddenly thought that the sound of that last "no" sounded more distant than usual.

"I'm sorry. That's not the kind of talk you wanted is it?"

Silence.

Of course. Silence.

I had some time, so I walked around to the end of the bridge, and scrambled down to the waters edge. I sat down and listened.

Labels: listen

"How long have you been here?" I decided to start the conversation this afternoon. I wanted some questions answered. I hoped they would be answers that I could understand.

"A long time." Was the simple answer.

I decided to ask a question that demanded a longer answer. "You told me that it looked different before. I assume you were talking about yourself? This place. What did it look like."

"It looked different."

Ok, that didn't work. So I countered with "In what way?"

"Those things weren't here." the voice said. I instinctively looked over at the buildings of the bushiness park.

"How long have the been here?" I asked.

"Not long."

"Was there anything here before?"

"Just the trees, and the others."

"Others?" I asked. Now we were getting somewhere.

"Yes, others like you, only, different."

"Ah, Native Americans."

"Americans?"

"Never mind. It really doesn't' t mean anything anyway." It was then that I decided to take another approach to this conversation. "Do you have any questions for me?"

"Yes. What are you doing here?"

"Ah, well, I'm taking a class over in the building over there about virtualizing hardware. It will help us to consolidate hardware by putting more servers on less hardware."

Silence.

"That's not what you were asking, was it?"

Silence.

"What am I doing here? Here, on the earth? Here in Seattle?"

"Here." it said, without any impatience, or malice. Throughout our entire conversation, the voice remained calm and comforting, like a warm breeze on a cool day.

"I suppose, I'm living life. I'm growing. I'm not sure what you mean."

"What are you doing here?" This was the first time the voice had showed any emphasis.

"You know, I have another concern." I began. "If I decide to write this conversation down, my readers will likely think that I'm stealing yet another idea, from yet another writer. People might think that I'm stealing Daniel Quinn's idea of using a "talking" Ape to learn lessons about society and life. I don't want them to think that, because Daniel Quinn started out good, and ended up drowning in his own thesis. Did you ever talk to Daniel Quinn?"

"Yes."

"He didn't understand did he?"

"No."

"I didn't think so. But you were asking, why am I here."

"Yes."

"The absolute truth is, I don't know."

Labels: listen

At lunch, I went back outside to the little bridge. The sun was high, and the air cool and moist. I could just smell the sea salt in the air, that's what smelled so good to me.

"Hello." the same voice said.

"Oh, hello." I replied. I'd been doing some thinking since I'd talked to the, whatever it was, out there earlier. "Listen, I really enjoyed talking to you earlier, but I'm afraid if I keep talking to you that I'll feel compelled to write about our conversations, and I'm not sure I want to."

"Why?" it said.

"Well, although I know that you are just a cleaver, yet somewhat contrived literary device for explaining how I'm experiencing this small piece of nature nestled inside a larger not-so-natural city, I think the others might think I'm just copying one of my friends." I admitted.

"Who?"

"You mean, who am I copying, or who will think I'm copying another person's idea?"

"Yes."

"Ok, for a babbling brook, you don't talk much do you?" I snickered, and went on, "I think that they'll just think I'm taking someone else's idea and using it, you know? I'm afraid they'll think I'm less of a writer, and can't come up with any new ideas, which in truth, is probably right."

"What else?"

"Well, I'm afraid that they'll think I'm just copying my friend Scott, when he writes about his conversations with a garden gnome named Chuck, in his back yard. His conversations are always similar to this, in meaning and tenor."

"But I'm not "Chuck."

"No. You're not." I said. "You seem different. I'm not exactly sure how, but you do. Still, you seem related."

"We are."

"How?" I questioned. "How are you related?"

"The same way you and your friend Scott are related."

"Scott and I aren't related."

"Aren't you?"

"Well," I started "he and I share some common history, it's true. Share some common experiences as well. But we aren't related by blood."

"Blood?"

"Family."

"Family?"

"I'd explain it to you, but it's too complicated." I sighed. Looking at my watch, I said, "I have to go inside."

"Why?"

"It's time."

"Time?"

"Oh.. never mind. You don't really experience time do you."

Silence.

"No, probably not in the same sense that I do. Before I go in, will you let me see what you look like?"

"You've already seen me."

"All I see is the water, the moss covered rocks, the fern, the ivy, and the trees rising above."

"All of that is me."

"Oh." I said. "My mother wouldn't approve of me writing about this. It's all too animistic now."

"Animistic?"

"Later," I said. "Still, you're right. I'm not sure how a literary device can be animistic. We'll talk more later. Ok?"

"Yes. We will."

Labels: listen

It was a cool morning in Seattle today. It smelled nice. The trees were green, the sky sunny and clear. But there was a problem. Noise. It wasn't quiet. For the entire five minute walk from my hotel to the training center, the dominant sound was the freeway and side roads. Cars, moving too and fro, creating an ever present humming like an enormous swarm of killer bees. It was dissonant. I wasn't used to it.

Yesterday, as we descended into SeaTac, Mt. Rainier overwhelming the sky with it's enormity, I had to remind myself that this was a city. A big city. I haven't been in a big city for any length of time since we moved to Laredo, TX in 2002, and Spokane, WA in 2003. I've become used to quiet. Small. Quaint. But I know big cities. I've been to big cities. They don't scare me, but they take a mindset, a change of attitude, an adaptation, if you will. I prepared myself for this as the wheels of our cramped jet hit the pavement.

As I walked to the training center, I tried to imagine what it would sound like if their weren't any cars. It was hard to do, since all I could hear was road noise. But then, as I crossed a little bridge from the parking lot of the training center, to the main building, I heard something else competing with the road noise. Something natural. Something primal and old. I stopped. What was this sound? I turned and looked down. Below the bridge was a brook. A small and babbling brook, almost hidden under ivy and fern. Flowing over moss covered rocks with clear, clean water, it wound it's way from under the drive way above, under the walkway bridge that I stood on, and dissapeared under into the underbrush beyond. I could still hear the freeway. It was still screaming in all it's modern volume. But down below me, here was a place of beauty, peace, and quiet.

Having been early, I stood and looked at it for a bit, leaning on the wooden railing. The sound of the water over the stones created a sort of music that strove against the roaring of the roads and the freeway in the distance, in it's own peaceful but persistent way. Then, I heard something else.

"It used to look different, you know."

I was startled. I looked around, and saw nobody.

"Hello?" I offered.

"The brook. It used to look different." The quiet voice said. The voice was neither male nor female, loud or soft. It just was, right in my ears. Not exactly knowing what to do, I replied timidly.

"What do you mean?"

"Before."

"When?"

"Before now."

The voice didn't seem to have any reference points in time to offer, so I offered some.

"Do you mean, before they built the buildings around it?"

"Yes. That was before now."

I wasn't sure what to say next, but noticed on my watch that it was about time for my training class to start.

"Listen..." I said.

"I always do."

"Sorry?"

"I always listen."

"Oh. Listen, I have to go into that building over there, for a class." I said softly. "Will you still be here at noon?"

"I've always been here."

"Well, uh, ok. I'll be back in just a bit then." I said as I turned away, but then I thought of something else, "Oh, by the way, do you have a friend named 'Chuck'?"

"Named?"

"Uh..well, never mind."

Labels: listen