The Sound of Silence.....

I took a sip of coffee from my thermos’s built in cup as I gazed down the dusty calcrete runway that we had arrived on a few minutes earlier. It was utterly silent except for the occasional tinking of the turbine engines cooling down and the whisper of the light wind blowing through the blond grass and scrubby trees surrounding the airstrip. I don’t believe that the vast majority of us realize how much noise civilization makes. Even when we think things are very quiet if we really listen we can almost always hear a car in the distance, an airplane flying overhead, water flowing, even the hum of electricity flowing through the various appliances that we surround ourselves with. If the truth be told most of us dislike true, deep quiet and if we encounter it will turn on a TV or a radio to provide some sort of background noise. Here it was quiet. As I soaked in the silence I waited for the clatter in the distance that would announce the return of our passengers in an ancient Landcrusier and contemplated their warning when they left. Don’t wander too far from the airplane. Both lions and cheetah had been seen at or near the airstrip in the last day or so. I sat on the airplane steps and drank my coffee.