One morning not to long ago I awoke from a fitful sleep. Peeking out from under the bridge I faced a cold foggy morning. It was always cold and foggy in Merced, but this morning was worse than usual. Minuets later while scuffing about on the banks of Bear Creek looking for my breakfast, a most pitiful sight emerged from the mist. A young man dressed in jogging attire was kneeling on the path, desperately grasping at the ankle of a pretty young women who was likewise dressed. “Oh god please he sniveled, I swear to god It’ll never happen again, you just can’t leave me alone like this.” The young women, her beautiful face contorted with rage gave her ankle a hard jerk, spilling the man onto his face. “ I can’t even go jogging with you she raged, I turn away for one instant and you are in the arms of another woman.” “It was the fog” he cried. “We collided by accident I swear!” “Good bye” the pretty woman said coldly, and stalked away into the mist. “Noooo” the man wailed, “noooo god no come baaaaaaaaaaaak” But the women was gone. I stood unnoticed in the murk and studied him thoughtfully, his snot filled nose was making snail trails on the wet pavement as he continued crawling spasmodically forward. He was making some awfully sad noises, maybe the saddest noised I had ever heard, But were they? Or were there sadder noises out there? Right then I decided to go on a quest for the saddest noise on earth. I wandered aimlessly through the M.St. Park, and soon spied a cute little girl playing on a swing set. In her hand was a huge red lollypop. I quickly closed the distance, and was at her side before she noticed me. Looking up she was at first surprised, but then smiled sweetly. It was obvious that a fear of strangers had not yet been beaten into her head. With one quick swoop I snatched the lollypop from her hand and dashed it to the ground. “Oh, sorry little girl I sneered, “but don’t worry, one side is still clean.” her face showed hope, but as she reached, I brought the heel of my boot down on the big red lollypop with a sickening crunch, over loud in the morning air. For a moment she stood still, staring at the broken mess that once had been her lollypop, then she sagged to the ground, fat tears welling up in her blue eyes, I listened closely to her quiet gasping sobs full of hurt and betrayal. It was quite a sad sound I assure you. But was it the saddest? I decided to press on. Soon I came to the railroad tracks that run through the muddy back lots of town. With a quick look around I saw a forlorn looking hobo sitting on a wooden box, and clutching a bottle of whiskey like it was life it’s self. I ambled over to him, lifting my hand in a friendly wave. Weakly he returned it, and in doing so nearly toppled of his box. Obviously he had been at his bottle for quite a spell. That looks like good whiskey I said. Mind if I have a sip? “Jusht a shmall one” he replied. “Itsh all I have to keepish me warm” I took the proffered bottle, and smashed it at his feet.
“Buh wuh wibbish??” He could not at first speak, but then launched into a string of drunken oaths, followed by a horrible blubbery caterwauling. As the poor hobo lay in the mud bawling into his beard, a train whistle sounded far off through the fog. Yes!! This was almost it, but still I walked on. Passing the local cemetery I saw an old Scotsman standing by a grave, attempting to play the bagpipes while crying. I was almost overcome by a melancholy so deep that before I knew what I was doing, my hands had grasped a length of rope, and had tied it in to a noose. I only just managed to stop my self from slipping the noose around my neck. This just had to be the saddest sound in the world. Then I spied a pair of Mourning Doves sitting on the dew soaked grass. Mourning Doves mate for life, if one in a pair dies, the other will lose the will to live, refuse to eat, and parish as well beside it’s mate. Armed with this knowledge I crept up on the Doves who were pressed together watching the sun rise. Grasping a large rock, I bashed the Dove on the left into a bloody pulp. The surviving Dove did not understand this. He urgently prodded his mate, willing her to rise so that they could escape from me into the trees, but it was no use. The male Dove raised his beak to the sky, and sang for his lost love. One note so pure and sad, that had I not wisely been wearing ear plugs It most surely would have killed me. I had found it!! The saddest sound in the world. I happily trudged back towards my bridge, but as I approached the fountain near Apple Gate Park I was brought up short by a sight that will forever haunt me. There beside the fountain in the pale misty light of dawn I saw a Scotsman crying because his little girls icream cone had been knocked out of her hand, by a Hobo who was diving to save his whisky bottle, which ultimately broke and killed one in a pair of Mourning Doves. The Dove never saw it coming because it was busy watching a sobbing man whose girl had just left him for throughing her kitten into the creek. Unwisely I had removed my earplugs, and thus was left defenseless against the sound which followed. My world turned inside out, I convulsed violently and sprawled onto the ground. Spasms wracked my body, my fingers clutched into claws, tore deep grooves in the dirt, then all went black.
I awoke many hours later to find that all involved in the incident had dropped dead. Victims no doubt of their combined sadness. Only distance had saved my life, had I been any closer I would surely have died with them. Deeply shaken I crawled back under my bridge. With time, drugs, and alcohol my wounds would heal.
