Quiet, are you there?

Did you notice it? The silence fell. The silence disappeared. The din of our lives drove him out of our lives.

When it happens that one perceives his presence in remote regions where he has taken refuge, amazement seizes the walker. “What silence! he exclaims. Finding him frightens the townspeople, suddenly left to fend for themselves. The disturbing silence. It opens onto the vertigo of being, the bottomless well of interiority.

Fortunately, everything is arranged to protect us from it. For a long time, for example, the train or the metro were reading rooms where it was possible to immerse yourself in a book or a newspaper, to daydream, to relax. Finished.

The metro has become a cluttered phone booth where loud conversations take up space. Without worrying about the neighbor, everyone flourishes in their bubble and maintains the ambient cacophony. The others do not exist. Woe to the unfortunate who rises up! The look he receives as an answer to his legitimate request is “final”: I do what I want!

Add noise to noise. On the platforms as in the trains, the announcements multiply, repetitive, boring. The RATP had the brilliant idea of ​​injecting “adapted” music and voices with exotic accents to mark each stop of the Parisian tram. Stupid and annoying. We should prosecute her for mental torture.

Taking the train now means being bombarded with jingles and untimely messages, always the same, ad nauseam. Everyone puts their grain of salt: “crew”, “captain”, “controller”, “barista”. We even have the right to their first names. Wacky people see fit to brighten up this imposed exercise with humorous sallies of their own. With varying fortunes…

A great group of friends therefore watches over us, but the “cleaning host” (someone in an office coined this grotesque word to highlight a thankless task, hats off!), he is not entitled to the microphone. The driver is getting involved now. We thought he was concentrating on his formidable responsibility, speeding along the rails at 320 km/h. He also gratifies us with his first name, charming attention (we were just wondering). The “Hello! » signalmen and station masters, when is it? We look forward.

Latest innovation to date: as you approach each station, the torture of a recorded voice, in a falsely tart tone, in a loop: “We are coming. Have you thought about taking all your things? Don’t forget anything! ” Enough ! Let us go!

Quiet, are you there? Answer! We can’t hear you anymore.

Source