Silence in the World

Mind Numb Me

Claus, a friend from Copenhagen, strongly suggested that I read Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam. I was wise to heed his advice. An excerpt of a paragraph from the chapter "Catfish Dawn" describes the silence inside of a Viet Cong death camp.

I, too, have been exploring the sounds of silence in the brutally cold environment of an Iowa winter, nothing compared to a death camp I know, but both climates bring a razor sharp awareness to human mortality and fragile flesh and muscle.

Of his last days in the death camp, Thong remembers the silence most. It was a thick creature that sat on his chest and lodged its fists in his throat. In the Viet Cong prison hut, he heard only his heart.

Andrew X. Pham