Annalog

I am sitting in my flat, listening to music on my headphones, getting a bite to eat before tonight. Above the sound of the music I hear, all of a sudden, what I think is an F16 fighter jet. It strikes me: When was the last time I heard the sound of a plane engine or saw the familiar trail of exhaust across the sky? I draw a blank.

Since I have been in Cape Town, the only evidence of airplanes I have noticed are the the highway signs on the N2 about three kilometers out of City Centre leading to Cape Town International Airport. I have seen a plane once as I drove out toward Soetwater. Other than that, nothing. Am I just being unobservant?

It’s such an unfamiliar feeling to be so far from planes. In the weeks directly following September 11th, I remember hearing the sound of F16s (I think) flying over my house in Washington, D.C. The sound was ominous and deafening. It was so clear that something I was not totally aware of was going on in my city, my country. Some plans were being cooked up.

From my flat in Cape Town, I hear quiet city sounds—far off cars, the low hum of generators. Every once in a long while a police siren goes off, only for a few brief seconds. Then city silence. There is no such thing as real silence in a city. I once heard that everyone hums at about the same pitch. The same pitch as a generator. We are around it constantly, unable to escape. Every city has its own soundscape. Cape Town’s does not include the sound of airplanes.

I left the sound of airplanes flying out of three different nearby airports. I feel an eerie sense of calm. No, more than that. Lethargy. Cape Town doesn’t feel like the large city it has been described as. I crave a faster pace. Hearing planes pass overhead is a reassuring feeling: the world is bustling with activity. Catastrophe seems so much less catastrophic because there’s always that reminder that the world will continue to go around.

It feels sleepy here—a city of 3.5 million people.