A TWENTY MINUTE SILENCE FOLLOWED BY APPLAUSE

Sound travels like water, flows into our bodies through inlets and ears. You don’t have earlids, after all. We take it in. Flesh absorbs vibrations. Noise beats at your bowels. It taps softly at the roots of tiny hairs that cover your skin. It can tickle or nauseate. The force is invisible, a ghost. Sound agitates your nerves, wind blowing against stalks of grain.

As we watch the mime’s expressive form, we lose awareness of our own. We forget to breathe. Thank God our lungs inflate and deflate on their own.

This is why—at performance end—we scream, stomp our feet, and throw our hands together. And we violently reawaken to our bodies.