“Sound.Noisethe air employs.Melodies sweet.Tweet, tweet, tweet.Soft. Loud.A roaring crowd.Cluck. Caw. Crow.Tet, tet. Tis, tis.Guttural growl.Harrowing howl.Drip, drip, drip.Tap, tap, tap.Moan and groan.Endless drone.Ding, dang, dong.A church bell song.Vibrations in my earto hear.Sound.”— Richelle E. Goodrich
“Listening is the most dangerous thing of all, listening means knowing, finding out about something and knowing what’s going on, our ears don’t have lids that can instinctively close against the words uttered, they can’t hide from what they sense they’re about to hear, it’s always too late.”— Javier Marías
“so many sounds do come close to our ears each moment. What we allow into our mind and how we interpret what we listen to is what propels our thought and actions”— Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
“If I close my eyes, plug my ears, and hold my tongue, all of this will cease to exist. I can pretend it never happened. No one will blame me if I choose to shove these memories into the back of my mind.”— Leigh Hershkovich
“Sometimes a loved one might not ‘spit’ the message in the most tender or poetic fashion that suits you, but don’t allow a rugged style to blind you from a loving intent. It’s the spirit of the message one must receive beyond [the] perception of one’s senses; be mindful of hearing with the heart.”— T.F. Hodge
“Imagine you are tied to a chair with your hands tightly bound behind you, preventing you from covering your ears. Before you is a giant chalkboard. A woman enters the room. Her fingernails are long, hard, and ready for attack. You follow her with your eyes as she saunters to the chalkboard and raises her hand to make a claw. She looks at you with a blank stare as she digs her fingernails into the chalkboard and drags downward. As the harsh sound hits your ears, you squeeze your eyes shut in an instinctive yet vain effort to shut out the noise, but the absence of sight only magnifies the vile sound. Your ears have become hypersensitive, and you feel an unpleasant chill shoot through your body down to the toes of your feet. Finally, the sound stops as she removes her nails from the board, and a wave of relief passes over you. But the reprieve is short-lived. Again, the nails dig into the board and screech all the way down. The process repeats itself several times, and each time she stops dragging, you think it has ended for good, but soon she starts all over again. You frantically call out to her and ask her why she is doing this. You wonder what you have done to earn this perpetual torture. But she only looks back at your with a blank, almost quizzical stare, and that is when you realize that she is unaware of the pain she is causing. You feel the hopelessness pass over you. You squirm to free yourself from the chair, but it’s no use. This is your life now, listening to this terribly unpleasant sound with no way to stop it. Sometimes she leaves, but she always comes back to repeat the scene, oblivious to the torture she creates.”— Rachel Cinelli