The Soundless Fury

Drinking iced coffee at night on the 13th floor of a hotel overlooking downtown Ha Noi. The city never seems to sleep and the lights of cars and motorcycles bustle and move swiftly across bridges and down streets in this city. The sky is a formless grey, reflecting the thousands of lights the populate Ha Noi. It is only now that I realize just how loud the ambient noise is in the city. Overtop the Old Quarter of the city lightning flashes with astounding frequency, but appears to be stationary. It flashes in the clouds and seems to travel horizontally. I think to myself that this facinating storm that is only a couple kilometers away should be crashing and banging in the background and ruining the conversation that is going on at the table, but there is a peculiar silence in the air. At this altitude one cannot hear the street noise that is seemingly omnipresent in this city, whether one is in the suburbs or in the heart of the city. This is not the first time I have seen and not heard storms here, so it seems that the noise of the ciy cancels out the violent thunderstorms.