In a neighbourhood filled with kombucha bars and cafes that only sold beverages made with turmeric, there lived a flute player named Lisa who had not slept in nine nights. She tried everything. She drank chamomile tea. She used lavender spray. She magnesium pills and downloaded meditation apps. She even tried the dangerous experiment known as turning her phone off for an hour. Nothing helped. Every night she closed her eyes and felt sleep getting close. Then the small voice inside her whispered.
Not yet. There is a note missing. This drove her mad. She played every scale known to music theory and several invented by jazz musicians. Still the whisper. Not yet. There is a note missing.
Exhausted, she decided to seek help from the one figure in the building known for solving mysteries about human existence. This was Nathan Brodovsky, the landlord. He almost never spoke out loud except for greetings so brief they barely counted as language. Instead he communicated through cryptic maintenance notes slipped under every tenant’s door. People said in earlier times he studied mystical poetry but quit realizing poets were even harder to manage than tenants. Lisa knocked on his door. He opened it with the stillness of someone who spent most afternoons contemplating fate. She explained her situation. She told him about the missing note and the insomnia and the moment she cried in Dollarama.
He listened without speaking. Then reached out and handed her a folded square of paper. On it was written: Play the sound that leaks.
She had no idea what it meant but she thanked him and went upstairs. She sat on her bed. She held the flute. She replayed his words in her mind. Play the sound that leaks. After thinking about it for twenty minutes she realized she knew exactly what he meant. There was one sound she avoided. It was raw and too honest. Every time it tried to come out she pushed it aside. It was the sound of an emotion she did not like to admit. Something between longing and fear and a desire to change her entire life and move to a different country where nobody knew how bad her sleep habits were. She played that sound. It reminded her of a voicemail recorded while hoping the person would not answer. As soon as the note filled the room she felt something loosen in her pulse.
When she went to bed that night, she heard no whisper. For the first time in nine nights she slept. Her neighbours were grateful because there was no pacing in the kitchen at three in the morning arguing with herself about moving to Berlin. When she checked her door the next day she found a maintenance note from Brodovsky. Sleep arrives when the heart stops hiding from itself. Below that he had written a different line. Do not fear the quiet. It is only your soul without its headphones.