The Silence, Don DeLillo, author: Laurie Anderson, Jeremy Bobb, Marin Ireland, Robin Miles, Jay O. Sanders, Michael Stuhlbarg, narrators
The year is 2022. Jim Kripps and Tessa Berens are flying from Paris to Newark Airport on their way to a friend’s Manhattan home to watch the Super Bowl. Jim doesn’t like the long flight and wants to talk, but she is busy writing in her book. There will be one other guest at their friend’s apartment, Martin Dekker. He is a former brilliant, physics student of Diane Lucas. She and Max Stenner are the hosts of the night’s entertainment and dinner. Max hopes there will be enough food. The three of them are watching the game on a giant TV, wondering where their friends from Paris are. Why are they late? Was the flight delayed? They are not overly concerned. Their conversation borders on the mundane; there are innocuous, meaningless, sometimes very confusing questions or statements that actually encourage thought while they befuddle the reader’s mind. When the TV fails to produce a picture, when the game disappears from the screen and the TV no longer operates properly, they wonder, is it just their apartment, their building? They try to call their children but their phones won’t work, neither will their computers. They check with neighbors, but they are all in the same boat. In a world where people are constantly in touch, they are suddenly completely out of touch. How widespread is it? Is it a minor glitch, a contained event that will soon be fixed? They don’t know and have no way of finding out. How can they entertain themselves?
This tiny book considers a world in which technology fails, all at once, all over the world, and it happens while a huge population is watching the 56th Super Bowl, so millions are aware of the failure all at once. What will the first thoughts be? Will anyone care, at first, about anything but the game and their immediate need for gratification in this world of “me first”? Will they wonder who caused it? When will their service be restored? Why now? Was it the Chinese? What will be the impact of such a catastrophic event? Will planes fall out of the sky? Will satellites fail and spin out of their orbits? Will everything that depends on technology and not the human intellect simply fail? Will prison cell doors open? How will information and news be provided? Will it really matter since we are living in a world of “fake news” anyway? How will gasoline pumps work? How will travel continue. How will they work? How will they get funds from their banks? Who will ship food and where should it be shipped? How can they reach their doctors? How can they get medication?. How will they survive if all communication is cut? In the streets, will there be chaos? Will there be riots? Will there be looting and violence and lawlessness? Who will maintain law and order?
In this tight little story, in not much more than 125 pages, such profound questions will arise in the minds of the readers, because besides entertaining themselves, they will have bigger problems. As these and other questions come into the reader’s mind, the most important to consider will be, could such a cyber attack ever really occur?