Earplugs

Posted on January 31, 2006 in Body Language Routine

Last week, I bought a package of earplugs that look like little blunt-nosed orange rockets made out of slick foam. You attenuate them by rolling them between your fingers and then slip them down the ear canal. They resume their former shape as best as the morphics of your body allow them. The world goes away.

I rise, occasionally, and go about my business for an hour or more before I remove them. The plugs shut out all but the loudest external noises — the phone, snapping fingers close at hand, the near mewing of cats. Around me at all times is the rolling thrash of the ocean within me, the blood vessels circling the eustachian tube, the salty blood splashing inside of the capillaries.

I can linger among the chambers of the ear, until I remove the plugs. Then I drown in noise and the lonely hum of air filters.