photo by https://unsplash.com/photos/brown-wooden-framed-glass-window-zFveAjAXMB4
There is a certain noise that fills every space.
The noise of children running through hallways, shouting, laughing, crying — the kind that makes teachers raise their voices and the janitor sigh in defeat. But when the bell rings, and the doors close behind the last footsteps, something happens. The air shifts. The walls, once trembling from laughter, suddenly rest. Characteristically quiet.
It’s the same with every school day.
During class — a mix of voices, questions, chalk scratching against the board, chairs moving, paper rustling.
Then, when the lessons are done and the lights go off, the silence returns, loyal and patient, waiting for tomorrow’s chaos.
Birthdays, too, come with noise — laughter, songs, candles, and that one off-key voice trying to sing louder than the rest. But when the guests leave, the plates sit empty, and the balloons start to lose their shine, again — quiet settles in. Familiar. Expected.
A person’s life begins in noise — a cry, the first sound of existence.
Hospitals echo with it, mothers weep, doctors shout instructions.
And at the end, there are again tears, whispers, and the murmur of grief.
Then, silence.
As if the world exhales, finally still.
It makes me think — maybe noise is how life announces itself, and quiet is how it remembers.
Just like the universe itself — born in a great explosion, in unimaginable sound and chaos — now drifts in a calm, endless hush.
We come from that silence and return to it, carrying all the sounds in between.
The laughter of children.
The noise of lessons learned.
The cries of beginnings and endings.
And somewhere in between — that brief moment when everything stops, and all that remains is peace.
Characteristically quiet.