by
Sam Strymish
Murray Shafer wrote, “the contemporary soundscape is notable for its dynamic hedonism”(Shafer 6). There is no true definition of a soundscape. I decided that I could create my own soundscape and it would indeed be an authentic soundscape. Instead of the taking a real environment and recording its existing soundscape, I invented my own environment, in the form of a short story, and created its own soundscape.
My story is about a future where people are part bug, the earth is flat, and when you fall off the side of it, you can be transported through time to a random date, either in the future or the past. The main character, Mr. Bug Person, falls off the side of the earth and is sent first into the future. Here, Mr. Bug Person is scared by the half-human, half-insect inhabitants who send him running off the earth. He drops off the edge and is transported back into the past where humans kill him because they fear him.
Mr. Bug Person meets with his demise when he gets scared by insect-people and runs off the side of the earth, into the past. However, how does he know insect people eat bug people? He only assumes that because insects often eat bugs. But an insect-person is very different than an insect. The story is unclear whether the insect-people do anything wrong or even if they chase him as it seems to imply. Mr. Bug Person gets himself killed running away from the future. Through my soundscape and story, I am implying that we humans do the same thing. People feel safety in the past and fear the future. It is this fear of the future—“running away from the future,”—which dooms us by preventing progress.
I made my soundscape using noises from everyday objects around my dorm room. For example, the dings are a pen clicking; the bells are me hitting my water bottle with tweezers; the thud of Mr. Bug Person hitting the ground is a book slammed close. I sewed a future from the fabric of the present. Below is my tapestry.
Mr. Bug Person
Slowly, over thousands of years, people have evolved to be more bug-like, and bugs have evolved to be more human-like, until they can no longer tell the difference between each other. Eventually, they have no choice but to become one species.
In 3001AB (After Bug transformation), Mr. Bug Person walks off the edge of the earth. (Earth of the future is flat.) Mr. Bug Person finds himself transported into the future, falling right-side-up onto the future flat earth (in about 4005AB). The sky is purple, and the grass is red, but he thinks nothing of it. He walks to the nearest place of residence to ask for help, confused as to where he might be. He chirps at the entrance to let them know someone is there. Suddenly the entire town appears, including the residents of the home he is standing before. He looks down at his own body with its four legs, then he looks up at the people standing before him with six legs. “OH NO, six legs!” he screams, running as fast as his four legs can take him. Six legs mean insect-people and insects eat bugs. He turns his head around 180 degrees to see if they are gaining on him. Just then, he falls off the earth again.
This time the grass is green, the sky blue and white, the earth round. “Freaky,” he thinks. Little does he know, it is -2500AB (2003AD). He takes not a single step before a cage closes around him. He is the fourth bug-person to fall from the sky into that exact spot. The villagers have prepared a trap this time. (In the future, they would erect a fence around the edge of the earth, but for a while, people keep getting sent back and forth in time.) The townspeople immediately squash him under a giant boot they have built. Normal weapons have no effect on the bug-people, rather, they must be squashed under a giant boot.
References
Schafer, Raymond Murray. “Preface, Introduction, and Natural Soundscapes.” The Soundscape Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, Destiny Books, Rochester, 2006, pp. 1–28.