Who Are You?

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All day long, in the tamarinds behind the house, a tropical bird keeps repeating its monotonous cry, which consists of the same three inquiring notes. Who-are-you? Who-are-you? Who-are-you? Loud, flat, harsh and piercing, the repetitive cry bores its way through the ear-drums with the exasperating persistence of a machine that can’t be switched off.

An identical cry echoes it from further away, calling out the same unanswered question, which is transmitted to other birds of the same species, until hundreds or thousands of them are shouting it all together. The ceaseless cries come from all distances and directions, from everywhere at once. Some are louder than others, or more prolonged; but all have the same infuriating mechanical sound, and seem devoid of feeling — they don’t express fear, love, aggression, or anything else — as if uttered simply to madden the hearer. The intolerable thing about them is the suggestion that they are produced by machines nobody can stop, which will eternally repeat the question no one ever answers.

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