Hrvatski | English

The boat slid under the rock, and the day stayed behind us.

First the light disappeared, then the warmth, then the words. Only the water remained, black and still, and an oar dipping into it slowly, as if counting. Every stroke came back to me from the dark twice: once as a sound, once as a thought.

Sound is my profession. Reverberation time, absorption, decibels – I turn everything a space does to a voice into numbers and tables. Here, for the first time, I wanted it to stay just sound. A stone millions of years old repeating whatever you tell it, slowly and without hurry, and no one having to calculate it.

When we came back into the light, the rocks were green again, the sky grey again, and the water was just water. But the echo stayed. I carry it still, when the office goes quiet.

Next time: Rain. Hanoi, where the city doesn’t take shelter, it just carries on.

Magic of Vietnam series: I. Echo · II. Rain · III. Light