Noise

When I first awoke, my limbs were separate and writhing things, extensions of myself that I'd forgotten how to control. It took weeks to learn to walk again, enough time for the scientists to do their tests: poking and prodding, drawing blood and measuring oxygen levels and pupil dilation and hormonal balances, all the while reveling in the marvel of their success. To them, I was not so much a human as a revelation: the first subject to successfully be reanimated after sixty-seven years in cryogenic sleep. But then, inevitably, their tests were finished, I could stand on my own two feet once more, and I was free to go.

I didn't think this far ahead. In 1952 I was thirty-five years old and thinking only that I was done being who I was: a woman with a dead husband, no kids, and nothing substantial enough in my life to warrant continued survival. So I'd volunteered to be frozen in time, mostly believing that when I'd entered that tank and closed my eyes, it would be a death sentence. And yet, here I was. I didn't think the conductors of this experiment had thought this far ahead, either. The woman who'd handed me my release papers and payment had seemed quite terrified for me. After a debriefing on the current state of the world in which I was pummeled with too much information to properly retain any of it, she'd grabbed my wrist as I'd begun my walk to the door.

"Be careful," she said. "It's different out there now."

"Don't worry, Hon," I'd assured her. "I'm carved from rougher things than stone."

This, of course, was not a reflection of my internal thoughts. I was terrified, and that fear only grew as I walked out into the world. The streets were a wide, a swelling mass of cars-- endless rows of headlights sweeping along with the consistency of ocean waves; ceaseless things with rounded edges and quiet engines.

When I'd first volunteered for the cryogenic study, one of the first questions the researchers had asked was what I expected to see in the future should the study be successful. Not wanting to give my real answer, the answer that involved their failure and my death, I'd requested time to think. And in my thinking, I had only been able to come up with one certain prediction: noise. I'd expected a cacaphony of sound: billboards that shouted their messages aloud; cars that hovered inches above the street, driven by invisible hands and humming like livewires; loud music pulsing from various sources at all hours; and an endless flow of boisterous and busy people, zooming down sidewalks on their automatic skateboards, dragging their robotic dogs along with them. I had been wrong.

The streets were not empty of people, of course, but there was a hushed kind of busyness I had never expected. People seemed to live inside the tiny screens of what the woman behind the front desk had warned me were cell phones- revolutionary technology that had apparently expanded beyond simply making phone calls and had instead become a way for people to watch television, listen to music, play games, send electronic letters, and read the news. Small, white cords hung from many people's ears, and I soon understood that those were headphones, helping to further separate people from their immediate surroundings. I didn't understand how they did it-- even without such distractions, I found myself having to dodge unsuspecting people and watch for traffic from multi-faceted intersections whose patterns were impossible to predict. Disturbingly exhausted, I ducked beneath the awning of a store called "Sprint," which I could only imagine specialized in exercise gear, to get my bearings. I had imagined a world that flowed like a stream, but instead, all around me, it seemed to move with chaotic and ill-timed jolts, the rhythms of so many people's individual movements out of sync with those around them.

Not caring how ridiculous it might look, I sat down on the curb outside the exercise store and focused on breathing deeply. Truth was, I had no idea where I was letting these unfamiliar streets take me. I had no one and nothing but the small wad of cash in my pocket from the cryo clinic, and I suddenly longed for my husband with a ferocity beyond comprehension. I had not missed my grief, but it came to me now as the only familiar feeling left of the world I'd reentered. Decades of unconscious years had done nothing to quel its violent ache, and I found myself leaning into the feeling, if only for something of my old life to hold onto.

"Are you alright, lady?"

Startled, I looked up to find a young boy no older than fourteen standing inches away from me on the curb, pulling a pair of those white headphones out of his ears. His wide, blue eyes were overflowing with concern, and I wiped at my own, only a little surprised at the moisture I found there.

"I'm alright," I insisted, though my wobbling voice didn't lend much certainty to the claim. "Just sad."

To my surprise, the boy sat down next to me, shoulder to shoulder. "You wanna hear something?"

I shrugged, and the boy brought the headphones out of his pocket again. He gave me one and put the other in his own ear, waiting for me to do the same. The plastic piece felt foreign and unnatural, but I followed his lead and inserted it into my ear. I sucked in a shocked breath as sound began to flow into my ear, the sensation made even more surreal by the fact that I recognized the song. My hand flew to my mouth in disbelief.

They call...no date. I promised you I'd wait...

"My grandma used to play this sometimes. She had an old record player," the boy said, swaying gently from side to side in time with the music. "Now I can listen to it and remember her whenever I want."

I'll walk alone, because to tell you the truth, I'll be lonely.

I don't mind being lonely when my heart tells me you are lonely, too...

"Oh no, I didn't mean to make you cry more!" the boy exclaimed, seeing my fresh tears. He moved to pause the song coming through impossibly clear on his phone, but I shook my head.

"No, no. Keep playing it, please," I said. "It helps me remember, too." I matched my movement to his, the two of us swaying back and forth on the curb together for a while. The song ended, and I smiled, wiping at my eyes. "Thank you," I said, believing myself ready to figure out what to do next. But the boy didn't move from his place beside me. He watched my expression carefully.

"Want me to play it again?" he asked, finally.

I nodded, and almost immediately, the familiar notes reached me again, holding me in their embrace. We listened again in silence together, and it was over too soon.

The boy didn't seem ready to leave. "You wanna listen to some AC/DC next? I just downloaded them from my dad's old CD's."

I was deeply aware of three things in that moment. The first was that none of my impending issues were solved. I was alone in a strange world with no idea what to do next and no real hand to guide me. The money in my pocket wouldn't last long, and I would have to figure out how to support myself. The second thing was that I hadn't understood a good portion of the kind boy's last sentence. And the third was that I wanted nothing more than to sit on the curb beside a blue-eyed stranger and watch the day pass us by. I shrugged again.

The music that next came to my ears was unlike anything I'd ever heard before, a buzzing of strings and a crashing of drums that seemed to perfectly reflect the disorder I could see all around me. One day soon, I thought, my shoulder brushing against the boy's as I settled in to listen, I'll know how to be part of the chaos.