Some call me Ishmael, the Listening God; others, Matthew Harris, Senior Surveillance Officer, MQE. I am charged with ‘procuring details regarding the perpetrators and supporters of Noise and associated equipment thereof and conveying said details to Operations’. It is a lonely and demanding job, but a rewarding one, paid accordingly, with fringe benefits.
MQE is ‘tough on noise, tough on the causes of noise’. We contend with producers and consumers alike, without fear or favour and in accordance with our robust equal opportunities policies. We have the powers; we have the knowledge; we have the skills. We serve the public interest 24/7/365. Our motto: Silentium est Aureum.
We target rogue producers, off-shore noise manufacturers, illicit pirate stations, unlicensed bands. We identify resistors tuning in at midnight in attic rooms; activists scrawling graffiti on posters and walls: Music Be the Food of Love; Killjoy Woz Here, etc, or wiring up boom boxes to speed cameras and traffic lights.
We equip whistle-blowers with camouflaged receivers, tap clandestine studios, infiltrate garage bands. We clip microphones to party walls, slip listening devices behind china cabinets, secrete receptors in microwaves, hide bugs under the bonnets of cars. We pay good money. We get good results.
We fight noise with fire. Our payback teams build bonfires. Saxophones melt. Guitars flare. Crowds cheer. We fight noise with noise. Our chain-gangs wield sledgehammers, smash sound systems, break records. We ruin producers, we close clubs. We ban bands, we burst drums. We break hands, we slit tongues. Our silence is final.
My loyalty is unquestioned. But sometimes the songs of my childhood dance into my head. Sometimes I open a window and hear singing in the hills. Sometimes I hear the screams of the silenced and my heart trembles. I close my ears and consider my pension.