I speak. The very act of speaking, the moment in which utterance occurs, signals the silence at hand. I speak. Silence can only be conveyed. Silence can never be experienced. Silence is the absence of all, even the void. This is silence. This, the blank space between the signs, the page on which the text is inscribed, this is silence. To write a history of silence would be to write a history of history, and so on. Silence is eternal transcendence. Silence is. 

Let us imagine an encyclopedia. There, in the cyclic, ordered chaos of its knowledge, between the endless recurrence of its pages, lurks a core which can never be read. We panic. We reach for the core. We turn the pages frantically, methodically, devotedly. We read in vain. This too is silence. The illusory promise of a key, an origin which forever eludes us, this is silence. 

We look into an empty room. The room is devoid of furniture. The room is bare, naked. Purity. This is silence. 

We imagine a moment without silence. The dogs are dead. Everything is crushed into a point of absolute density, infinite presence, infinitely material. We need silence. 

There is no sky. The sky is an illusion. There is only space. This is silence.

“Touch the sky.”

“How?”

“Hold out your hand.”

This is – .