When David Toop mentions about sound as being uncanny, he calls upon Freud who wrote about the fact that often anxieties could come from children fear of experiences of darkness and silences: “Freud’s description of the uncanny as eerie or frightening, the unhomely sensations arising from that which is unfamiliar and uncertain, particularly when they are once familiar feelings that have become secret or repressed, extended to the uncanny nature of silence and darkness. Inconclusively, at the end of his famous essay, he attributed this to infantile anxieties that none of us fully overcome. Such fears may be childish, but they are rooted in very deep memories of unknown sounds and series silences overheard in the dark”.(1)
I am maybe 5 or 6. Numbers again fail me. I am lying down on my side on my metallic red framed bed.
Outside darkness fills the quiet garden surrounding the house. my fingers run against the texture of the flowerywallpaper. Following different paths, there are mountains, valleys and lakes whose shape is defined by small portions of torn wallpaper that have been ripped over time leaving behind exposed pulp of paper against my fingertips. soft rocky banks. Having exhausted the landscape, I turn on my belly, my head on the side, pressing my right ear against the pillow.
Vibrations.
They are regular, or so it seemed in the beginning. one, two, one, two, three, one, two, one, one, one, one, one one, one, one, two.
In Critique of Rhythm: A Historical Anthropology of Language, Henry Meschonnic recalls some of Paul Valery’s words on rhythm dealing with a physiological model for rhythm: “It is remarkable that conventions of regular poetry, rimes, fixed cesura, equal numbers of syllables or of foot imitate the monotonous regime of the living body’s machinery, and maybe proceed from this fundamental functions’ mechanism, which repeat the act of life, add element of life to element of life, and build the time of life among things, like an edifice of coral rising in the sea.”(2)
Vibrations spread from my thorax to the mattress, from the mattress to the pillow, from the pillow to my outer ear, from my outer ear to my ear canal, from my ear canal to the eardrum, from the eardrum to the three bones of my middle ear, from my middle ear to my cochlea. the sound seems inside my body, yet vibrations are felt on my skin. A long corridor, rhythmic footsteps resonating, dark floating images, suspended breath and faster beating. ”It is not the repetition that creates rhythm, but it’s the rhythm that allows repetition,” says Valery (3). one, two, one, one, one, two. in a move sideways, it stops. Yearning for the lost rhythm in the silence of the room, until sleep fades everything out.

A small earthquake under my feet that feels stronger and stronger as I’m walking to the sound blindly. On the tiny slope road, I arrive at a barricade, inside of which, metal cranes supporting mechanical devices relentlessly pierce the ground. One, two, three, four, three four, there is no partition for these four prepared instruments. The heavyweight is rising again, in anticipation to be released and make the pole disappear into the soil. There are no foundations or scales for these improvised patterns. On each periodic vertical movement of the weight, vibrations radiate horizontally from its impact point, extending their territory through any other surfaces it encounters as their intensities diminish. Only passing cars and buses are playing their own score, disregarding the changing landscape.

Vibrations stop in a final hit. Loud silence.
………
1: David Toop, sinister resonance, continuum, 2010, p. xiv
2: Paul Valéry in Henri Meschonnic, Critique of Rhythm: A Historical Anthropology of Language, éditions Verdier, 1982, p. 175
3: ibidem, p.174

當大衛．托普(David Toop)提及聲音是不思議的時候，他引用弗洛伊德的分析指出焦慮可能來自孩童時害怕黑暗和沉默的經歷：「弗洛伊德描述的不思議是陰森恐怖或可怕，從陌生和不確定中產生非家常的感覺，特別是它們曾經熟悉的感覺情轉為秘密或遭受抑壓，並延伸至自然寂靜和黑暗的不思議中。不確定的是，在他著名文章的結尾，弗洛伊德將此歸因於嬰兒的憂慮，且沒有人能完全克服。這種恐懼可能是幼稚的，但它植根於人們的記憶深處中，於黑暗中聽見不知名的聲音或者是一連串的沉默。」[1]

我也許五或六歲。數字再次打敗我。我在身旁的紅色金屬框架床躺下來。

外面的黑暗充滿了圍繞著房子的寧靜花園。我的手感受花紋牆紙的質感。跟隨著不同的路徑，有高山，峽谷和湖泊，其形狀是牆紙被撕裂後留下的殘跡，是我指頭所感受到的紙屑。柔軟的岩岸。對風景感到筋疲力盡，我感到病懨懨的，頭躺在一旁，把右耳壓在枕頭上。

振動。

他們是規律的，或因此它在一開始就是這樣。一，二，一，二，三，一，二，一，一，一，一，一，一，一，一，二。

在《韻律批判: 語言的歷史人類學》中，亨利•梅索尼克(Henri Meschonnic)想起保羅•梵樂希(Paul Valery)對生理模式節奏的論述：「值得注意的是，正規的詩歌，韻律，固定的停頓、相等數目的音節，腳部模仿生物機能的單一制式，或是運行基本功能機制的，它都重複地展演生命，為生活元素加入生活元素，於事物間築起生命的時間，就像於海裡冒升的珊瑚群般。」[2]

振動從我的胸部蔓延到床墊，從床墊到枕頭，從枕頭到我的外耳，從外耳到我的耳道，從耳道至鼓膜，從鼓膜到中耳的的三塊骨頭，從中耳到耳蝸。聲音似乎在我體內，但我皮膚感受到振動。長長的走廊，富節奏的腳步聲在共鳴，沉暗浮動的影像，呼吸暫停及快速躍動。 「這非重複地創造節奏，而是允許重複的節奏。」梵樂希說[3]。一、二、一、一、一、二、一。它在身旁移動，停止。嚮往在寂靜房間中失落的節奏，直至睡眠把萬物消逝。

腳下發生的小地震，感覺越來越強烈，因為我盲目的走向聲源。在微小的斜路上，我遇上路障，配以無情地捅破了地面的金屬起重機。一，二，三，四，三，四，這四個工具沒有分區。重量再次上升，昐望獲得釋放，管子消失於土壤中。這些即興節奏沒有基礎或標準。每一次重量的週期性垂直移動，振動輻射由它的碰撞點，水平地移至四周，且不斷地減弱。路過的汽車和巴士都獨善其身，忽視景觀的變化。

最後一擊後振動停止。喧鬧的沉默。

[1] 大衛．托普(David Toop)，《距離與共振》(sinister resonance)，continuum
出版， 2010， 14。
[2] 梅索尼克引用自梵樂希， 《韻律批判: 語言的歷史人類學》， Éditions Verdier
出版，1982，175。
[3] 同上，174。