Echo Chamber - Feb 11 2026

 

Echo Chamber

Feb 11 2026

I have spent the day alone.

No vow of silence

but no need to talk; 

the only sounds

the turning of pages,

a medley of jazz,

my random puttering.

How many people

haven’t spoken aloud

for 24 hours or more?

I suppose, for a social animal

such solitude is not just unnatural 

but impractical;

after all, we are attached

and the demands on us don’t stop.

The determined hermit, perhaps,

a congenital introvert.

And the odd reclusive oligarch

who can afford

a private island in the warm south seas

or a glass-walled penthouse above the clouds,

peering down

at a cottony white expanse

as far as he can see.

But I’m good by myself.

I don’t get bored

require company

need to be heard.

    … Or so I tell myself. 

When I do return

to the outside world

my voice will start a little rough,

like a car

that sat unplugged

through a cold winter night.

The sound will surprise me,

hearing my voice mouthing niceties

to the clerk or cashier.

And remind me how untried it is

how out of practice I am;

an old man with a young voice

used lightly,

like a vintage car

that's hardly driven

except to church and back.

But while my vocal cords

will be full, smooth, and pink

and speak with the fluency of youth,

my voice will also betray

a certain immaturity;

sounding naive,

and imbued with the urgency

of a callow young man

eager for life to start.

It sounded different in my head;

a monologue

that’s never contradicted,

a litany 

circling back on itself

in futile rumination,

and an echo

hammering against the hard bone

 of my sealed skull.

Like an inmate, unjustly imprisoned

tapping out morse code,

or rattling the bars

with a dented metal cup;

but no one there to listen

or let me out.