The noise had been deafening. Eager beyond belief. Every person—every passenger—had been eager to speak, to explain, to express: their lives, desires, loyalties, beliefs, enemies, lovers, secrets, dreams, losses, fears, how it all felt to each one of them; each comparing notes, as it were, with the others in every subway car. The cars would jostle and rattle down the tracks as they spoke. The same urgency in each voice. A few, even then, who sat or stood in silent contemplation amidst the noise. Every life exposed and expressed to the greatest degree possible, “baring it all,” as they say—this is what the passengers once sought. Little in the way of physical confrontation, contrary to the expectations of many—the voices carried enough force by themselves. There are some, I have learned, who remember this time fondly. The noise—one could call it noise—had been, at one time, layered and dense with potential signification. One great heaving roar inside each car.
The transit authorities constructed the subway system some time ago. I am one of those men and women now tasked with maintenance. There are many others like me. We attend to issues of maintenance when called upon—tasks are assigned via a vast pneumatic tube network connecting all maintenance booths. I spend most hours studying the map of the subways painted on the south wall of my booth, the booth being a lopsided cube, as you may perchance see for yourself one day. The paint on the south wall is yellowed and peeling; large portions of the subway map are illegible or missing. Years ago, it had rained for several days (perhaps more), and my booth, as well as many others like it, had flooded—water had dripped from a wide array of cracks in the ceiling, and when the door was opened, which had been been a mistake (the transit authorities later informed us in a strongly worded communication), a gush of cold rainwater had streamed into the once well-attended, now dilapidated booth (dilapidated even then, even before the rain), a booth that had been designed with no such contingency in mind, as they later informed us. In any case, the map is incomplete regardless of the water damage; it only displays the immediate five-mile radius of the system as it extends from my booth at the center, despite the map taking up the entirety of the south wall, lines extending from floor to ceiling and from the east corner to the west. More than a few maintenance persons I have encountered have expressed to me the desire to assemble as many of these incomplete map portions as possible into one theoretically final omni-map, as though each incomplete map in each booth were a piece overlapping complexly with the other pieces of some enormous and likely (in my view) incomprehensible mosaic. It has been rumored that one maintenance person has already begun to labour at this delirious project. The water-damaged ceiling and door were afterwards redesigned and replaced.
Since the rain and subsequent redesign and replacement, the booth has been comprised of dilapidated walls and desk and chair and concrete floor alongside conspicuously new material for the ceiling and door. Before installation, the new material (I know not what material it is, but I know that it is different) had been painted bright white, and the conspicuous juxtaposition of old and new in my booth now often brings to mind an image of thick kudzu overgrowth on the concrete wall of a large and empty administrative building in some unknown business district, an image whose origin in my mind I cannot pinpoint; the white paint still has a faint gleam to it, whenever I care to notice. Not the new replacing the old, necessarily, but rather the tendrils of the new growing alongside older things no longer maintained, the growth conforming to and supported by older things now regarded as insignificant. I cannot articulate why I am certain the building is empty, as the image is only a view from the outside of what appears to be a very large and gray—the gray only visible in the few scattered spaces without the overwhelming green—and otherwise nondescript administrative building. The sense, also, of time passing. Upon reflection, these are the primary associations I have with—or alongside, or that emerge from—the image of kudzu on the gray wall that occasionally flashes through me when I stare at the now white, crackless ceiling. There are more associations, I know, but it is difficult (not to mention gratuitous) to name them in such an explicit and linear fashion. The remodeling had taken place without my or anyone else’s notice—the new ceiling and door had simply appeared overnight.
The map of the subway system on the south wall had not been repainted after the rain—the paint appears almost as ancient as the system itself is rumored to be. The transit authorities refuse to repaint and blame the deterioration entirely on the water damage caused by those who opened the doors to their booths; I believe this to be in error, as the leak through the array of cracks in the ceiling had also played an obvious role (only tacitly acknowledged by the ceiling remodeling), not to mention the inevitable decay from the passage of time. The cracks on the ceilings in many booths, including mine, had expanded to such an extent that the network of lines they formed appeared to be a map of equal complexity to the “official” map painted on what was usually the south wall. Though I must admit, the bottom portion of the map, which had displayed the southernmost reaches of my assigned region within the system, might still be legible today had the previous man assigned to my booth not been so frivolous as to open the door.
All of us maintenance men and women have by now learned that those who ride the subways no longer speak—not to one another, nor to themselves. They sit or stand in stillness as the trains stream through the tunnels. It is not for the reasons you may assume. The transit authorities had not commanded silence; the dead quiet is of the passengers’ own volition, though it is difficult to say how much of a “choice” they have in the matter, regardless of the absence of explicit punishment for disobedience regarding this unspoken commandment. Among us maintenance persons, the cause of the silence is a compelling mystery and source for endless speculation. For one, I do not believe cynicism was the cause, as the most foolish maintenance persons I have met seem to believe—these persons tell me that the passengers no longer carry the same passion for life and are now rendered mute by a childish nihilism. This is a shallow theory held only by fearful persons, those who are themselves afraid to sit in silence and who carry the conviction that others must also suffer when distractions end and the gray boredom and despair beneath the noise makes itself visible. To many of them, silence is not merely an empty vessel, but rather the dark, billowing shape of the demon they suspect is lurking in the empty spaces of their own minds. If the silence continues, these persons fear it can only be filled by the demon—for many, if not most, the empty space is the demon.
Others believe the dead quiet is a consequence of the silencing of the former rattle and jostle of the subway cars—the speed of the trains is now inaudible to the passengers, ever since the near-overnight mass remodeling undertaken years ago by the authorities, and the passengers now suffer profound discomfort, the theory goes, at the small sounds of their voices, alone and conspicuous, against the dead quiet of the trains in their now liquid movement (the old design had been a perpetual reminder of the solidity of the cars, but now one is only reminded of water, or perhaps also of electric current). One passenger might begin to speak, having the irresistible impulse all of us have, at times, to express some part of ourselves, some fear or belief or desire, but upon hearing his voice amidst the dead quiet, he quickly trails off, feeling he has committed some great aberration. I find this theory compelling, but incomplete.
I have had a great deal of time to myself in my booth to contemplate theories, slowly turning each one over in my mind. One will make itself visible to me—a memory of a maintenance person might flash through me, brought about by some unknown confluence of variables in my mind as I sit alone in my booth, and I will be reminded of the theory this person expressed as we walked together down the narrow maintenance pathways running alongside the walls of the tunnels, or as we laboured at some task assigned to us by the authorities, hammering at some bent or twisted rail or rewiring certain wires in a switchboard—and I will choose either to hold the theory in my mind and turn it over, or I will dismiss it as beneath consideration. Many thoughts—theories or otherwise—pass through without my conscious awareness—other thoughts or memories or associations rattle and jostle as they pass, forcing me to observe. The former enter my mind like water pouring into water. Sometimes I would stare, for example, at a crack in the ceiling (staring at the ceiling is an action I often take without conscious awareness)—there are no cracks to examine anymore though, not since the remodeling after the rain—and after some time, there would be an instant in which an idea or association would begin to make some noise as it passes, and I would find myself hearing a thought like, “this crack has a similar quality to the Nile River on maps of the world I’ve seen,” and I would then be made aware of the fact that I had been staring at this crack in silent contemplation for perhaps a few seconds, perhaps a few minutes, or longer. Though, of course, this newly-conscious thought would never be articulated in such a comprehensible fashion when it would occur. These thoughts never take the form of a sentence like the one I have just shared with you. They only make a little noise inside as they rush past.
There are usually a few passengers possessing the tenuous conviction that they know their destinations—almost, though not always, mistaken—and all the rest share a sense of latent and mostly unacknowledged uncertainty. A few maintenance persons have speculated to me that the subway riders were, at some point in the past, made aware of their confusion in some permanent, unalterable way, and that this is the reason for their current silence—a silence borne of conscious uncertainty about themselves. I have turned this theory over in my mind many times. A perhaps baseless confidence had possessed and buried the confusion inside the riders of the past—this is why, as the theory goes, they had been so eager to share what they had thought they felt inside—but, at some point in the distant and not quite forgotten past, they had realized or perhaps had been forced to realize that they know nothing, nothing about themselves, nothing about the fears or desires beneath everything, and now the passengers feel compelled to sit in stillness, fearing that others might judge them as naive if they dare to commit the arrogance of speaking aloud something they might believe about themselves.
A few maintenance persons have shared with me the related theory that on every train there had been at least one prophet—likely, in my view, a false prophet, but one convincing enough to give the others faith—who had observed the wisdom of the few silent ones sitting in what appeared to be absolute serenity with themselves, others, and the world, and those prophets had then staggered from car to car, wind rushing past as they had thrown the doors to each car open, trudging from one end of the train to the other, to preach to the others the apophatic doctrine that truth is only discovered through negation and that speech only serves to obscure the divine, and who, after reaching the final cars and giving their final sermons, had begun to sit or stand in stillness themselves, their supposedly divine silence then radiating and encompassing all the other passengers on each train. All the passengers then sitting in dumb silence, for they had failed to comprehend the true doctrine that without affirmation, negation is meaningless—that negation itself must also be negated—the passengers and pseudo-prophets like mirrors hidden inside dark bags allowing no light inside.
I nod as the maintenance persons who carry this theory explain it to me—I remember a man whose path I had crossed in the long journey down the tunnel leading directly south from my booth, whose voice had risen every time a train passed, the trains no longer rattling or jostling but still leaving in their wake reverberations of speed, the concrete walls of the tunnels producing what can only be described as a silent roar. He had spoken with urgency—I needed to understand, he had urged, the truly religious nature of the silence. I did not explain to him that I had already understood these spiritual dimensions, though in a different way than his somewhat facile faith.
Occasionally a memory streams into me through a door I had not intended to open. The past is confused and indistinct—it only comes in rushes and streams at unforeseen intervals. I have been a maintenance person for many years now. My mind is like an empty room that creaks with changes in air pressure from an open window. Or a sky with complex air currents and thermodynamic cycles only made visible by the occasional cloud. I was once a passenger, as all of us once were—I was there in the days of the noise. We have only learned of the silence from more recent passengers.
One maintenance person—a gray man who had emerged from the dark of one of the tunnels beyond the borders of my map—had related to me his theory, if one can venture to call it a “theory,” that the previous urgent dialogue in the cars had been like a wildfire in the savannah: a natural occurence, he needlessly reminded me, just as necessary for the long-term health of the ecosystem as a period of growth. The new silence was akin to the silent ashes of brush left after one of these wildfires, hawks circling in the empty sky above. Growth unchecked is a disease. As he spoke, I had been reminded, in a new way, of kudzu. We tend to ignore that many ecosystems have evolved alongside intense fire, and that fire suppression only leads to imbalances that disrupt necessary cycles of decay and renewal. The current silence will not remain—it will soon be the framework on which a new blooming, buzzing confusion will emerge. I had listened and nodded as this man spoke.
None of the maintenance persons I have encountered so far have heard or seen or had any direct encounter with a member of the transit authorities. Many have expressed to me the belief that the authorities do not exist at all—that the tasks assigned to us are merely the organic expression of the subway system’s ingenious self-maintaining design. As though the tunnels were the veins and arteries of some immense organism with no awareness of its internal mechanics. The proof they offer for this theory is the fact that the authorities, despite the very occasional strongly worded communication, have never once sent via the tube network a complete map of the subway system, despite unending complaints (also sent through the tubes) that such a map would be of immeasurable value. The tunnel system is vast and labyrinthine—some rumors circulate about a chosen few who discovered a terminal point and left the system, never to return—and more than a few have left their booths permanently empty after becoming disoriented and venturing down some unknown tunnel, perhaps eventually finding another empty booth in which to reside, or else wandering the system for years on end. The theory goes that “the authorities,” then, are merely a fictional avatar evolved or emerging from the system itself for the purposes of univocal agency, on the few occasions when such a univocal “will” or “desire” might be beneficial—as in the remodeling of the trains that took place without anyone’s notice, which was only announced via terse memo from “the authorities” a few days later. This is a compelling theory, but I tell these maintenance persons that it is better not to consider such matters, as it will make their labour in the tunnels only that much more difficult—that it is much more practical to have faith (a subtle faith, though).
The roar inside each car did not end immediately after the remodeling. For some time, there had been an imbalance; the passengers had continued their endless, eager talk until they finally realized there was no longer a need to counterbalance the former violent rattle and jostle of the cars. This is my own theory, related in some ways to a few of the others, but only shared in full by one other maintenance person I have encountered. I do not explain my theory often—I nod as the others express themselves and only offer my own thoughts when appropriate. What I write now is only the consequence of an irresistible impulse. I explained to one man with whom I had felt an immediate and inexplicable kinship—he carried a faint, silent smile—that the senses had been overwhelmed by the previous rattle and jostle. The passengers had found themselves irresistibly compelled to speak above the noise—the overwhelming desire to make oneself heard. The passengers had not been able to hear themselves think in the past, I explained to this silent man—it had not been, at root, the desire to express themselves to the others, I explained. It was rather the desire to express oneself to oneself—this is what had compelled the passengers to speak so urgently in the past, I said to this man in the tunnels. There was no need, now—as a replacement to the former external rattle and jostle, the dead quiet of the cars was now counterbalanced by the silent roar inside each passenger, now internally audible to each passenger. The man had nodded with a faint smile as he listened to me.
It is not true that the memories only come in streams and gushes through an open door—they also leak in drips through cracks: sometimes a steady drip, sometimes irregular. It has been a long time since any of us have seen sunlight.
I have faith that one day I will be replaced by a maintenance person who will not feel the irresistible impulse to speak, as I do—the man before me had been arrogant to open the door (he had arrogantly wanted to discover the source of the sound of rushing water surrounding his booth, even though he had to have known or at least had some premonition that there would be nothing to see except the currents themselves—it was only later that we maintenance persons decided to call the aberrant flood a consequence of a days-long storm; it was only the water currents themselves that we discovered outside our booths—but you must keep this to yourself), but I myself have been arrogant in a subtler fashion. I have spoken over the roaring silence in order to express to you the nature of this same silence to which I am foolishly devoted. It is my devout faith that in the future, we maintenance persons will no longer arrogantly express our thoughts, memories, beliefs—not speaking to anyone except ourselves—that rather, after enough time has passed, it will be solace enough to listen to the silent, animal roar of unseen things eagerly rushing and growing and burning.