City Snapshots: Rest in Peace

His city days were filled with noise. Even when he slept his head was filled with the steady drone of traffic, punctuated at regular intervals by beeping horns and police sirens. After a while he no longer noticed these sounds at all. Indeed, on the rare occasion that he ventured away from the city, it was the silence that he found most difficult to cope with.

Noise represented life, a relentless, pulsing energy that was never switched off. He drew strength from the rhythms of his daily routines. The street cleaners at dawn, the pings and buzzes of the Metro, the clanking and screeching of the train to and from work, the rumbles and cries of the late night refuse collectors.

When he died, it seemed natural that he should remain in this comforting cocoon. "Why should death always be synonymous with rest and silence?" he'd asked. "Just let me stay forever surrounded by the sounds of the city".

(Photo taken in the Cimitière de Levallois, story imagined!)