A revelation of elevation

When I was small, I remember my older brother, seven years my senior, excitedly telling my father that Mercedes Benz spent an enormous amount of money perfecting the sound of the car door’s closing.  Smooth, exact and neat, the click spoke of quality, authority and weight.  The steel of the door frame, the milled metal in the catches and the rubber that snugged the seals cohered perfectly.

There is a purity in well-manufactured sound that distinguishes it from those of human agency.  A drill sergeant may smile inwardly as thirty right feet crack as one; the conductor’s heart may skip a beat as notes and baton fall simultaneously still, but the anonymity of a toilet seat’s silent descent brings perfect delight.

A recent alteration of a bathroom required the installation of a new toilet.  As a considerate male I elevate the seat; as a very considerate male I put it down again for the ladies of the house.  Not that I always did so: then came the night when the cold porcelain did not sit well with one of them and I heard all about it.  Small thing it seems, but in the wee hours all my effort goes into staying asleep.  Any conscious thought and physical movement must be minimal, which rules out bending down to replace the seat instead of just kerlunking it down in a house of light sleepers.  But this has changed: now with a single flick of a finger the seat sets off on a graceful arc until it comes to perfect rest on the bowl below. The challenge now is the temptation to remain, watching and admiring the intelligent descent amidst a house of sleepy beings.

The sound of manufactured silence is admirable in another context: the garbage bin in the kitchen.  Not the most favoured receptacle in the house, nor the most fragrant, the bin is positioned next to the sink to receive the undesirable waste foodstuffs and other trash.  A kitchen is not characterised as a silent space and the bin lid used to clang loudly every time something ended up there.  But this has changed: depressing the foot pedal of the new bin elevates the lid, allowing the load to be admitted before the foot is removed and the burden is blessed with a silent, soothing closure. 

The precise click of steel in a car of engineering quality and the soft quiet that shutters the less desirable objects of toilet and kitchen both complement their surroundings.  But at the midnight moment of a new day’s beginning, comes a sound that carries the weight of the life to come: a number in my watch glides into view with a clear, definite click, synchronous with the exact moment of its settling.  It is worth waiting up for.

Robots being all the talk these days, I might even live to own some such object.  If I could pass a tip on to their manufacturers before AI beats me to it, mine must have perfect sound, like toilet seats, garbage lids and good car doors.