Strangers, the three of us sat in the quiet room, engaged individually in presumably critical study. Over the entrance, a sign read, “Do not disturb the solitude, that all may seek it.” For the better part of an hour, we meditated on, I imagined, the great problems of the day. I decided I was in good company, because few were serious enough to devote so much unbroken time to pure thought. Yet sure enough a lack of constitution emerged and one of us began to doze, emitting a medley of mumbles, snores, and whistle-gasps that sounded increasingly as though he might choke on his own apneic windpipe.
Though I knew my work stimulating and important, I became distracted by the erratic, flatulent death of the silence and the ensuing anticipation of the next disruption. The space between snores was now a mere tease, as awful as the snores themselves for their uncertain length. I thought, “who is he to ruin the peace of others so he may nap in public?” I glanced several times at the third man, until finally our eyes met. I looked at the sleeper, and back at him. He looked at the sleeper, and back at me. I suspected by the nature of this contact we had just engaged ourselves in a silent compact toward action.
Though I knew the consequence of breaking the silence, I could endure it no longer. I rose and paced definitively across the room to wake the boor.
I gently cleared my throat and reached my hand toward the man’s shoulder to shake him from his ruinous snooze, when a whisper was catapulted across the room. The voice of the third man, who had, in doing so, permanently sacrificed his own access to the room, spoke thus:
“Who are you to decide he is to wake? How do you know he is not at this moment dreaming the solution to your galactic impatience?”
