The Quiet Race

I was driving home from a friend's tonight, and I started thinking...

What if we lived in a world where communication was limited to only three basic messages? There were no stories, movies, songs, books, conversations, sentences, or even words. Only three feelings.

1. On - This symbolizes everyday life. No one pays any mind to this message because this is what we have come to expect from each other. Compared to modern day conversations, this would be the obligatory "How are you?" "Oh, I'm good" exchange. The initiator doesn't care about the answer and the responder doesn't really tell the truth.

2. High beams - This would fill in for anything out of the ordinary: excitement, anger, grief, joy, happiness, fear, surprise, anticipation, shame, love, envy, or confusion. But the catch is, no one knows which emotion. He or she knows only that it means something more than apathy.

3. And finally, off. - This is the dangerous one because it means this person has nothing to say, feels nothing. The message can change back to on, if done quickly. But if not, with no purpose, the message stays off. Death.

**In case you haven't figured it out yet, this is a metaphor for driving a car a night and the brightness of headlights.**

It all began because a woman took a drive one night to clear her head. She realized that without the constant jabbering of the world's media - TVs, radios, advertisements - and people - her husband, her kids, her mother, her best friend: she could finally think. With all of that deep thinking, came a deep understanding of herself and what she truly wanted. She discovered that while those noisy people and things sometimes brought her pleasure, a greater portion of the time they provided only distress.

Without them, she could think freely. She could pray. She could imagine. She could dream. She could do many other things that society has been suppressing for years. And she liked it.

But a world without people or emotions would be a sad and lonely one. So she resolved not to be alone, but, instead, to have quiet.

Upon returning home, she removed a headlight from her car and affixed it to a strap around her shoulders like a shoulder-bag. She wrote a note to her family explaining her new endeavor and asking them to try it, too. She explained the lights with the three categories, and began her new life - dedicated to the peacefulness of the human mind.

Of course, her family thought she was crazy. Who wouldn't? I do. You know, you do too. But there is also a small part of me that would love for society's noise to just leave me alone. So that I could pray, imagine, and dream.

And when her family tried the new calm system of communication, they found that they, too, liked it. One woman's plea for quiet in a world brimming with noise, became the cry of an entire generation. And person by person, family by family, city by city, and country by country, everyone became quiet.

Until the only sounds on the whole earth, were the noises of the animals and the hum of electricity coursing through the power lines.

In the beginning, everyone was overjoyed, and they used their high beams so much that everyone's eyesight faded just a bit. But as the silence began to take it's toll, most autopiloted to simply "on."

As the quiet race had children, their children became quiet and their children after that. Until as a collective race, we all forgot how to speak. And there were only quiet lights throughout the whole world.

To be continued...