[Silent Time 1] Counting

The conductor's arms rise.

They descend. The strings begin to move. The woodwinds join in, and the brass layer upon layer. The sound is already filling the entire hall. Up to the high ceiling, without a single gap.

I have not done anything yet.

I am sitting with my hands on my knees. In the very back row. Even further behind the heads of the woodwind players. A gong is hanging in front of me. Its diameter is about the size of my torso, reflecting the lights dully. A dark gold. The mallet is still leaning against the side, untouched.

Before the performance, I gently checked the center of the surface with the pad of my finger. Since then, I have kept my hands away.

Today, too, I will strike it only once.

In this piece, my sound is just a single strike. Until that moment comes, there are no notes for me anywhere on the sheet music. Only rests are lined up. For page after page, the rests just continue.

On the sheet music, rests are just symbols. A diagonal bar and a dot. Even if I follow them with my eyes, not a single moment of time passes.

The instrument is hanging, ready to sound even before it is struck. I am the same.

The air in the hall is faintly taut from the vibration of the strings. Within that tension, I am the only one who holds no sound.

So, I count.

There is nothing else to do. Counting is all that is left for me.

One.

The first measure passes, riding on the swell of the strings.

Two.

It is still far off. My strike is a long way ahead. I can see the conductor's shoulders take a deep breath up front. The audience is dark. No one is looking at me. There is no reason to look.

Three.

Both hands remain still on my knees. There is no need to move them yet.

Four.

The sound does not break. Everyone except me is playing right now. Only I am counting.

Five. Six.

I do not speak the numbers aloud. I do not even use my throat. I simply place them in my mind. Like building blocks, one by one.

Around the seventh measure, my focus always drifts. While counting, I think about other things. I can do both. Or rather, I cannot think about other things unless I am counting. The numbers act as a handrail.

I look at the conductor. With his back to the audience, he stands facing this way—facing the entire orchestra. Because he is far away, I cannot see the fine details of his face. What I see are his arms. The baton in his right hand marks the beat, while his left hand strokes something in the air. The lights occasionally make the sweat on his forehead glisten. That person is sounding every single note. With his arms, his shoulders, his breath. He does not stop for even a second.

I am stopped.

To say I am stopped is not quite right. I am listening. Instead of sounding, I am listening to everything. The thickness of the strings, the thin lines of the woodwinds, the angle at which the brass rises. The sound passes through my body, hits the wall behind me, and returns. I sit and receive even that return. A player who does not play has things to do, too.

The player next to me gently placed his palm on the skin of the timpani. His turn must be coming soon. His instrument sounds throughout the piece. Like a heartbeat, it strikes again and again. My instrument sounds only once.

Why did I choose this?

I no longer remember the reason. Perhaps it was because my hands were free. Or because someone left, and they needed someone to fill the space behind. It was probably something of that sort. Yet, I believe I have continued because I was suited for it. For waiting.

Somewhere in the audience, a single cough. A dry sound. People hold their breath during the piece. Even so, it leaks out, unable to be suppressed. That cough, too, is part of this piece. A sound not written on the sheet music. A sound that belongs to no one, yet is certainly there.

Twenty.

Before I knew it, I had reached that point. The middle is missing. Where did I count from eight to nineteen? I do not remember. I must have counted them, yet they remain nowhere in my hands.

Time passes in that way. Even if you count it, it does not remain. And yet, I count the things that do not remain.

My single strike is near the end of this piece. Hundreds of measures away. Until then, I exist here. One could even say I exist in order not to sound. For the sake of that one single time, I take on all the time spent not sounding.

I have thought before that it does not pay off. Waiting so long for one strike. Whether it is rewarded or not, no one listening would know. When the gong sounds once, the piece does not change. The conductor does not nod. The player next to me is not surprised. Everyone simply knows that my one strike is there.

Even so, I do not move from here.

The sound of this instrument does not end immediately when struck. Once hit, it leaves a long tail. It continues to sound even after I take my hand away. That is why one strike is enough. With just that one time, it sounds for quite a long while. The time after it has sounded is surely longer than the time spent sounding.

I still cannot put that into words well.

Thirty.

The numbers progress. The remainder gradually decreases. I can only think of the decreasing numbers as decreasing. Not 'how many measures left,' nor 'only this many measures left,' just simply, decreasing.

From that point on, it was fast.

Forty. Fifty. The numbers suddenly feel lighter. Even though they wouldn't budge until just a moment ago, now they are slipping through my fingers.

My turn is approaching.

I pick up the mallet. The wooden handle is colder than I expected. It had been leaning against my side for so long. I confirm its weight in my hand. It is heavy. But it is not a weight I cannot hold. For hundreds of measures, I had not reached out to take this weight.

I stand up. I face the gong directly. The dark golden surface does not reflect me. It is simply there. It has been there the whole time, ready to sound.

The conductor looked at me.

The orchestra's sound is thinning out. The strings pull back, the woodwinds retreat, and the music begins to clear a space for my single strike. The entire hall turns to face one direction.

A few measures remain.

I stop counting.

I don't need to count anymore. Once I've come this far, my body knows the rest. I inhale. I raise the mallet to shoulder height. I look at the center of the surface. I look even deeper, past the center.

The conductor's arm reaches its peak.

And then, it is swung down.

I strike.

The sound spreads.

The sound born from a single strike rises to the ceiling of the hall and slowly descends. It fades. But it does not vanish. Even after I have struck it, it is still ringing.

I lower the mallet. I do nothing more. I am listening to the sound I created as it recedes.

I count. One. Two. Three. -- This time, it is not measures. I am counting the fading sound. As if searching for the boundary between where the sound ends and where the silence begins.

Four. Five.

I can no longer hear it. Even so, it does not feel like it has ended.

Perhaps this is what I had been waiting for. Not the instant of the strike, but this long time after the sound has been made.

I will not stop counting.