'Bikerman' excerpts

XIII
DEATH RATTLE

The walls are now on the attack.

They come with a harsh unnatural voice, a rasping volcano hurling boulders at us without aim.

Only chance says where they land, making nowhere safe.

I am momentarily struck deaf.

I do not hear the awful final roar of the tower in death.

My mind blocks out the last sounds of the powerful collapse, the ripping, renting, relentless break up raining down. But with all the growling and gnashing of its dentilations, I do not recall the cruel noise.

I am deaf . . . as deaf as I was to those voices crying vainly for help.

Perhaps my hearing is deadened by the sight of so dark a vision of such destruction, too great a suffering to absorb, too stimulating to accept, too overwhelming to possess.

The wind does not blow the cacophony away as it did the voices from atop.

The sound is present.

I simply am unable to hear it.

But I cannot refuse to see it.

From "Bikeman," by Thomas F. Flynn