Member-only story
Going Beyond the Noise
A mouse in the house
Malcolm sat in his very quiet room. There was no music playing, no TV, no electric gadgets other than the light bulb in the ceiling. The windows were shut tight allowing no sounds to come in from the outside. It was so profoundly quiet a pin could be heard were it to drop.
Despite the quiet stillness it was outrageously loud inside Malcolm’s noggin. Thoughts were spewing forth like a geyser. They flowed through his mind so quickly that he could not even focus on any of them. It seemed impossible to stop the thoughts even for just a few seconds. It was like Malcolm was addicted to thinking. He was powerless to stop the incessant thinking that was gushing through his mind every waking minute of his days.
He tried meditation and yoga and breathing techniques and sensory deprivation and walking out in nature but none of those things seemed to work to stop the noise. He wanted to experience what was on the other side of that noise.
He also tried drowning out the noise with louder noise. He would put on his headphones and listen to music at incredibly high volume levels. Obviously, that did not work either. That merely gave rhythm and intensity to the noise already in his head.
He tried drugs. He tried alcohol in hopes of drowning out the noise but it merely jumbled the…
