The Happenings at the Estate

By Jaya Rao-Herel & Amanda Ekery

This is an interactive reading/listening experience. Listen to the accompanying audio with headphones and read at your pace.

Muted music that no one else could hear
danced in and out of their ears
The lights were blown out
Droplets broke as they hit the cement 
it rained every night and the concrete was always damp
Leaving behind a musty scent 
Their long faces stretched around their bulged eyes 
Their reflections scared one another, satisfied

The young couple made two fried eggs 
to celebrate their engagement
The hypochondriac cured her constructed illness shopping for seeds 

The magician tried to disappear 
behind her raincoat
The boy wished to never return home 
But then the wind picked up
A yellow cab 
sped around the roundabout 

The tires crushed the seeds into damp cement
The smell of breakfast hung in the air
The reflection absorbed the smooth smoke
And a puddle of yellow lay cloaked on gravel 

A jubilant soundtrack played soundlessly 
Forgetfulness confused his direction 
That week’s iteration of happiness beginning
Saggy, loose, strained and heavy

Process

We started with a poem draft Jaya wrote after listening to “In a Black Out” by Hamilton Leithauser. We then highlighted passages that we liked and developed those lines into full stanzas. After completing the poem, we each recorded short sounds around our homes on our phones and compiled them in Garageband. Some sounds included running water, a ratchet tool, a clock ticking, and a distant train. We organized the sounds to match the poem and edited everything using reverb, panning, effects, and volume automation. The overall goal was to create a chaotic snapshot of a community and immerse the reader visually and aurally.