The Final Destination of Sound | Short-Short [The Sound of a Knock]

There was the sound of a knock.

The old man turned around slowly. There was no one on the other side of the door. Instead, a distortion formed in the space, and from it, an old book slid out. Titled "The Final Report of Humanity," it was bound in a strange metal.

The old man had once been a renowned linguist. Even after retiring, he remained shut away in his study, immersed in the research of obscure ancient scripts. That day, he was at the final stage of his hypothesis that all languages on Earth would eventually converge into a single universal sound.

As he slowly opened the book, the pages were not filled with characters, but with countless dots drawn in complex patterns. Yet, the old man could read them. The fruits of his many years of research exploded into connection at that very moment. The patterns woven by the dots were the very visualization of the universal "sound" he had been searching for.

The old man gasped. That sound contained everything from the beginning of the universe to its end, speaking the truth of all creation. At the same time, he understood that every human thought, emotion, and action was merely a simple variation of this one sound. Joy, sorrow, anger, love—all were just resonances. And the history of humanity, too, was nothing more than a slight modulation of this sound.

The book snapped shut. The next moment, the old man's body decomposed into countless points of light and quietly dissolved into the air of the study. In the room, only the faint, yet distinct, sound of a knock remained. It was as if it were a universal call, searching for the next "reader."

Shinichi Hoshi has a book titled "The Sound of a Knock," and all 15 stories included in it begin with "There was the sound of a knock."
It is one of my favorite books, where various stories unfold from the same opening line.
Because of that, I wanted to write a short-short titled "The Sound of a Knock" this time.
Did any of you have a favorite story among them?

#ShinichiHoshi #ShortShort #TheSoundOfAKnock