The Quiet Has A Name Now

I was walking back home, with white bandage on my left arm. I was thankful it wasn’t a fracture. A grimace reached my face as the irritating attention seeking music of the popcorn vendor pierced my eardrums. I had already taken a short-cut to avoid the noisy street. I walked faster now. I almost laughed at the futility of this injury. There are few injuries and scars you are proud of but then there are some which only remind you of your stupidity. This one definitely belonged to the latter category.

I unlocked the door and let myself in.

“Hey”, I hear a voice and turned around. And I saw myself, a little older version I would say, looking back at me with a smile. I looked around to see the source of this joke but found none.

“Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me… I mean you.. Oh how do I say?”, I heard my voice followed by a giggle. I was terrified by now. Am I seeing ghosts now? I thought.

“No you are not!” Came the reply instantly, as if reading my thoughts.

“Come, sit and relax a little”, I saw her pointing to the couch behind her but I was too scared to move.

“Who are you? And why do you look like me?”, I managed to finally put voice to my words.

“Oh, thankfully you did recognize me atleast. This confirms I haven’t changed much over the years, have I?” another giggle followed.

“I came from the future, I am you and you are me”, the reply came after the giggle stopped.

“You’re lying, there’s no time travel yet”, I muttered.

“Did I say Time Travel?” came the question.

“Then? Is it happening in my head?”

“May be, may be not”, she winked and her gaze shifted to my bandage.

“How did you hurt yourself?”

“Don’t you know, if you’re from the future”, I retorted.

“Haha! I remember I was smart since the beginning!” Another giggle. What’s so funny, I think.

“Dear, I see that’s not a major injury so do you really think, with all that is going to happen in our life, I am going to remember these little bruises?” Came equally befitting reply. “So tell me how did you hurt yourself this time girl?”

“Err.. I tangled myself in the earphones and fell of the stairs while running to catch the metro. It was quite crowded and the wire got stuck in a lady’s handbag…”, my voice trailed off in her laughter.

“Oh God! Those days of struggle with the wired earphones!’

“I see that wireless headphones dangling around your neck”, I said. It was one of the first things I had noticed after the fear had receded.

“It is just not any wireless headphone off the market! These are The BOSE! You can take the music anywhere around without any hassles of wires and the music.. you got to hear it to believe that it is the music at its best as a result of decades of research and proprietary Bose technologies. Its connectivity is great and lets you connect through Bluetooth and NFC. And don’t you have to worry a thing about the battery my darling!”

I stared at her in disbelief, my mouth agape. Suddenly I wanted to take that from her or me. I was still referring to her in third person not able to accept that it was my future self I was talking to.

“Hey, where are you lost? Already dreaming about future eh?”

“Umm.. not exactly, was just wondering this could have saved me from this misery”, I said looking at my bandage.

“Yes and so many more. Ever experienced the ultimate quietness?”

I stared at her. “Yes ofcourse, so many times”, I replied.

“Like there isn’t even a single piece of noise?”

I stared at her blankly. It was something I surely hadn’t experienced to such great depth as she was asking. I shook my head.

“With Bose QC35 II you get that. Just with a press of a button you can lose yourself into the quiet or the world of music as you like. It just makes quiet even quieter and that’s my favourite feature. I can find my peace just about anywhere shutting out the world. With the level of noise cancellation in your hands, what else can you need from it?”

I can see the happiness in her eyes. I could understand for a troubled soul like ours, how important was it to sometimes just shut out the world and feel yourself. I saw peace in her eyes. I knew there was good future ahead of me. I smiled.

“But doesn’t it burden your neck, like the way it’s hanging around. It looks heavy”, I voiced one of my concerns.

“It only looks like that but doesn’t it also look so smart? Oh I know it does. Since the time I got my hands on it everyone has been lusting over it! But they are so soft and comfortable, you just don’t feel the weight of it even for a while. And just like they look they are super durable. They’re engineered to survive the on-the-go pressure we put on our gadgets with impact and corrosion-resistant materials.”

“I want them!” I blurted before I could stop myself.

“Haha! Everyone does”, she winked, “but not everyone gets it. Patience my dear, aren’t you seeing yourself having these, right in front of you!”

That actually made sense, it was me who was holding it but yet the years between us made it look so far from me. I saw her walking away from me, mumbling something to the air.

“What happened?” I asked concerned.

“Oh nothing, it was just a work call. I couldn’t tell where I was, could I?” she winked again.

“Call? But where’s the phone?”

My question was met with a burst of laughter. I was finding it weird to hear my own laughter but not laughing myself. I waited for the laughter to die down before the answer came.

“Who needs a phone when there’s whole of Google Assistant built into your headphones. All you have to do is talk to it and voila it will do the rest for you while you go about life enjoying music. God bless who invented technology! It saves us so much time. I can paint while I’m telling it what to reply to my important texts. And you can even personalize your headphones with the Bose Connect App. Oh, the possibilities are limitless, even I am yet to explore so many!”

I nodded, trying to hide how envious I was about how most of my time wasted away in those stupid replies to the messages.

“But it has a demerit too!” I hear her complain.

“Huh?” I react in disbelief.

“Yeah, With such clear phone calls, I can’t fake I didn’t hear the another person well enough or worse, the voice of the person you dislike also sounds so clear that you can’t escape! There is no noise disturbance to blame for what-so-ever.” I think I saw a smirk on her face when she said that. She was really enjoying herself at my expense, or should I say her own expense.

I woke up to the noise from the road outside. The vegetable vendors announced their arrival and also that of the morning. This had become new routine of mine and I had literally stopped needing alarms in the morning. That peaceful sleep had evaded me and it felt like I lived on the road ifself. As I blinked my eyes slowly, I found myself cozily curled in my bed inside my blanket. A few images playing like a slideshow in my head and I realized I had a weird but an amazing dream. I picked up my phone and typed in to Google – “ Bose QC35 II”