Episode 263: The Sound
February 26th, 2024
Kristen Zaza
[Eerie Theme Music.]
[Your Narrator:]
Tonight, for you, I have a story.
Sit with me by the fire, if you can see it in your mind; same as it always is, roaring up the chimney that goes who knows where in this castle, rooftops have crumbled up and away into outer space, ghosts keep rearranging the walls on me, the black hole is eating up everything brick-by-brick, but the couches are still comfortable and the blankets are still soft and we are still together, telling stories in this room together. I can let go of the castle and still adore it.
So here we are.
Is your other body in a house? In a room, a bed maybe? In a car, a bus, walking down a sidewalk?
No matter.
Somehow, you are here now.
Listening
To the same sound I am.
Once upon a time, there was a writer sat at his laptop, trying his best to come up with a novel.
It wasn’t his first time. He had written others. Adventure novels with thrilling battle scenes and heroic protagonists. Romance novels with desperate lovers and dastardly villains. Science fiction novels with faraway worlds and unusual inventions. Horror novels with unquiet spirits and monstrous creatures. He had written his autobiography. He had written research essays on historical events. He’d contributed to a graphic novel, he co-wrote a young adult fiction series, he’d written plays, dialogues, newspaper articles, reviews of his peers’ work. He had tried his hand at absolutely everything that there was to write, or at least that’s what it felt like, and he’d had the most success a writer of his middle age and lauded status could ever seek to have.
But he had one more book he had to write.
He didn’t know what it was. He hadn’t planned a genre, he hadn’t devised a story arc, he didn’t have a character in mind. No clue whatsoever as to the length, the intended audience, nothing. He had no idea in mind, other than that he must write one more book, because he had to fulfill his final contract with his publisher. Nothing more.
He did not delude himself, of course, to think that writing from contractual obligation was conducive to genuine creativity. Knowing this did not absolve him from his obligation, either.
But he had done this many, many times before, and he felt certain he would be able to do it one more time.
Surely, he could.
Couldn’t he?
He sat in his office. It had been hard-won, this office - in his youth he wrote wherever he could find peace and quiet, and when he was struggling in his career he had to tune out sounds of the city from outside his apartment window; but in this stage of his life where success and funding was abundant, it was everything he dreamed of, his writing space. Quiet. Spacious. Clean, clear, organized. The exact colour he needed to focus. Minimalist artwork that was inspiring but not distracting.
And yet here he sat, and what good did it do him? None whatsoever.
But he would get himself out of this.
He always did.
He opened his laptop and began to write.
It didn’t matter what about. What was important, was that one began to write.
The characters would introduce themselves.
The story would unfold quite naturally.
He was a pro. The best of the best.
Maybe it felt like there was nothing left to talk about.
Maybe, perhaps, it might just be time to sit
[A faint hum begins; layered, low, many voices in unison, so quiet, almost imperceptible]
No, he thought to himself, that is death, that is death for a writer. I have a book to write. I can do it.
So he kept going.
Writing about people and places that came out so naturally, because how could they not? He knew about people, he knew about places, easy to talk about them, easy to bring them to life. He could decide what they did, what they liked, what their problems were, it was all nothing to him, but maybe that was the problem - that creating people was not the issue. Caring about them, being interested in them, that was the real challenge. A word count was easily attainable; 400, 500, 600 words poured out one after the other, he could go back and make them more interesting later, but in the meantime it was the coldness he held towards him that was the most concerning. No more inspiring heroes, no more terrifying villains, no more alluring seducers; even his autobiography, he’d allowed in adoration for himself, why not. These people were just people. Just like the people he drove by on the rode to the farmer’s market. Just like the people he stood on the elevator with on the way up to his penthouse condominium. Just like the people on the news. Coming and going, living their own lives as he lived his. Neither liked nor disliked. Just people. What more was there to say about them?
He heard, suddenly, at about 800 words or so, a sound
A faint hum
Layered
Low
Many voices in unison
So quiet,
Almost imperceptible
It was so strange, it stopped his fingers in their typing,
What was that?
Ah, never mind.
It must be a trick of his ears. It would pass.
On he went, writing.
The characters he wrote about encountered strange and unexplainable things.
He often felt a pull to take a break, go inhale, make up a drink, have a nap, read someone else’s book, watch something on the television.
But, even if they didn’t inspire him, even if he didn’t have the same feeling that creating worlds held when he was a younger, more hungry writer, he had to honour them, these characters
With his presence
With his attention
That is the least they deserved.
They were trying, his characters, always trying.
Just like him.
Trying to create something. To change something. In this particular instance, A painter, she was; a painter in a time and place very different from his own, in dire circumstances, trying desperately to catch the attention of those in power about the suffering of a people, trying - perhaps in vain, but with all the strength she had in her - trying to communicate through images what she knew in her heart was right and what was wrong. She was trying, but she failed, in favour of more conventional, acceptable paintings.
But she was trying.
His characters were always more courageous than he was.
He was past his prime. He had written his most powerful novels. Or at least that’s what he told himself in excuse to not put any hope in this final novel being anything important, any significant succes, any real and influential meaning
But perhaps the knowledge it was his last one could help him towards even a modicum of bravery.
No, he wasn’t brave.
Not like his protagonist.
Well, truth be told, she wasn’t always like that. No, no, he had to create a character with development; she had to grow, she had to change, if she wanted the world to grow, to change. Through it all, she was afraid. She was a small, small, small, small, small part of a big, big, big, big, big machine. She didn’t want to be. She didn’t understand the way it worked. She didn’t know why it appeared that so many people had to suffer within it for so few people’s happiness. She didn’t know why vengeance and greed were the batteries the machine seemed to draw its energy from. But she was good at painting. Her small role to play within the big machine was to paint pieces of such beauty that people stopped and noticed and allowed their hearts to be struck by them. She painted shadow with such love that viewers wanted to be painted over with her shades of black and grey and midnight blue so that they may join them and be a part of it too.
She was afraid. She was small. The world was big. She was afraid. She didn’t think there was anything she could do to help its pain.
But bravery came one night when she was painting - she had been commissioned to paint something for a wealthy patron, anything, And she had no inspiration. With so many crying out in pain around her, how could she paint beauty? How could she pour love into shadows on a canvas? She didn’t know, but she had done it many times before and she knew she could do it again. She trusted herself to do it again. She set the canvas up, she poured the colours onto a board, she perpared the canvas, and she put colours to it. Maybe it wasn’t anything just yet, but perhaps from the colours, from the shadows there, she could find her love again. Maybe the image would come to her, not her to it, if she simply allowed it to.
[That hum has been steadily growing louder, louder, louder - or is it closer, closer, closer?]
Her paintbrush froze in her hand as she could swear she heard something
A sound, piercing the silence of her room, cutting through the sounds of wheels on cobblestone outside her window on this winter night. Low. A hum, that had been steadily growing louder, louder, louder - or was it closer, closer, closer?
What was it?
Her hand slipped, causing a streak of light across the otherwise dark background of her piece.
Ah, never mind.
She didn’t want to be distracted. Not from the thing she loved most in the world. And that was creating her own worlds; worlds where the bitterness and hatred in the world outside had no dominion; where magic of all kinds was real; gods and humans and mythical creatures alike cavorted and laughed and loved and wept together and perhaps had their conflicts and their dramas but nothing that couldn’t be solved by being suddenly dissolving and being turned into a blazing star in the firmament.
She wished she could paint something that could feed the hungry in her town
She wished she could paint something courageous enough to speak for those who had no voice in this big machine
But she could only paint heroes and spirits whose great deeds had already been sung about for thousands of years.
Subjects who were much more courageous than she could ever be.
[A melody; a sighing voice over the hum; like light piercing through shadow]
She looked at the flaw she’d created in her surprise at the strange sound.
The streak of light on the painting was like a ray of light, shining through from behind the canvas, past the structure of the woven thing
Like she hadn’t put something on the canvas, but rather created a hole for that light behind it to shine through
And with that
The painting began to make itself known to her -
Again, she had always painted ancient temples, glorious forests, people who looked like people from a time much more ancient than hers. The style she and most others painted in was rooted in glorifying myths and legends and so gods and humans in flowing white gowns, always dancing, it seemed, were usually her subject
But now she painted something else
Something she’d never seen before
A tower - a castle - she wasn’t sure exactly what it was
Tall and square
Taller than any buildings she’d ever seen in her life
Broad
And full of windows
So many windows
More people could be housed in this building than lived in her entire seaside town
And the light shone through one of the windows, right in the top, right in a penthouse condominium - not that she knew what that was - more brightly than a candle or a lantern or a fire or even a lighthouse could provide
On the streets below, small though it was, great carriages without horses carried numerous people, and glowed with that same intense radiance
One carriage must be able to carry over two dozen
Paved roads, not cobblestone as the ones she’d always seen, had citizens in strange clothing walking down them
She imagined a world where light brought everyone together even in the darkness
She imagined a future with much light and little pain
She imagined a world she assumed she would never be able to see in her one lifetime
What was she painting, she asked herself?
And a voice in the back of her mind answered. Using some words she knew and some words she didn’t:
“The source of that sound”, it said
“That sound you’ve never heard before”
“That sound that could only come from a soul in a faraway time or land”
“There is someone somewhere seeing your creation from that faraway time or land”
“Maybe not seeing with eyes, no one who is here with you, not in their other body”
“Is their other body in a house? In a room, a bed maybe? In a car, a bus, walking down a sidewalk?”
“No matter.”
“Somehow, they are here now.”
“Listening.”
“To the same sound you are.”
[The sound is much louder now]
The sound is much louder now
Do you hear it?
Someone is in the story-room with us now
A writer, typing
A painter, painting
A podcaster, podcasting
People seeking light
Souls creating light
And there is a third chair
Behind us
Facing the other direction, facing away from the fireplace.
I turn slowly to see who it is, but I only see the back of their head
Their long dark hair spirals in matted locks that float in all directions, like an old ancient etching of the sun on a treasure map
The sound is coming from their throat
Which swallows pain and sorrow, not to be rid of it but to turn it into
That Sound
That’s where that hum, that universe of sound, emanates from
I feel it vibrating in my ribcage, striking my spine
And I feel
Perhaps
I can be courageous
Perhaps
I can create worlds where pain and suffering and sorrow still exist, sure, they always will, but in the world I create
It will not be turned away from
It will not be ignored
It will not be invisible
We will allow it to reach us
We will shine a bright light on it
And we will allow ourselves to weep for it
We will have the courage
To look our world in the eye
Take responsibility
And make it what we know it can be
What - in some distant time and place - it already is
I feel it in that humming
The figure with the hair like rippling waves of animated black sunlight slowly turns around and I see their eyes - dark and empty and deep and spiraling like the same black hole that is steadily devouring this place
My heart tries to leap out of my chest to jump into the void in their eyes
So beautiful they are
But instead their eyes jump into my heart
And I feel I understand why my towers and castles keep being destroyed
We have to keep creating it over and over and over again
The world, that is
We have to keep doing it
We must keep repeating the cycle
It starts with breath
The world started with a sound
That we created
I hear it
I make it
[Harmony]
Do you?
[Another harmony]
The figure smiles
And I am again in love.
[Eerie theme music]
(Host speaks as Kristen:)
Hello my friends. This is Kristen Zaza, your writer, host, narrator, composer, podcaster, cosmis devourer, creator of On a Dark, Cold Night. Thanks so much for joining me for Episode 263. I hope that you’re doing well. Finding a balance between rest and creation, growth and acceptance. Just some things the full moon in Virgo has me thinking of. And I’ve been thinking of our voice, our will, our love, and how we can best channel it into responsibility for the world we exist in now - or maybe “now” isn’t the right word, perhaps, in this particular plane of existence, anyway.
I’d like to thank everyone who supports the show on a monthly basis on Patreon - thank you so much for your consistent support, my friends, it goes so far in helping this show get created and I can’t have gone this far without you. Every supporter of $1 or more US on Patreon receives access to my complete soundtrack, while every supporter of $5 or more US gets that, a weekly bonus “Quick Moment” meditation, and a monthly tarot reading video every full moon. There’s a new one up there right now as of 2 days ago. To learn more, visit patreon.com/darkcoldnight. The bonus meditation episodes are also available on ITunes through a subscription to the Sonar+ apple podcast channel for $3.99 a month - learn more by looking up ON a Dark, Cold Night or the Sonar Network on iTunes. And you can donate one-time only without any perks at ko-fi.com/darkcoldnight, or by buying a t-shirt or hoodie at bonfire.com/on-a-dark-cold-night.
I would love if you left a rating and a review on iTunes, Spotify, Facebook, or wherever else you like to rate and review podcasts. You can follow me on Twitter @ADarkColdnight, instagram at darkcoldnightpodcast, Facebook and YouTube at On a Dark, Cold Night, Bluesky and Tiktok at kristenzaza, or on Twitter @ADarkColdNight.
Thank you as always for joining me
Thank you for your voice
Thank you for your courage.
Sweet dreams, my friends.
[Eerie theme music]
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