Marcin and Kuba thrive on noise, and to live they need a constant soundtrack which keeps total silence at bay. I don't suffer from this aural horror vacuii and when they aren't home I listen to nothing at all and find that it is loud enough in itself. There is a hum of whitegoods, a sporadic swish of tyres down on Euston Street, the tapping of the keyboard. I can hear a phone ringing and a fire alarm erupts as somebody fries their evening meal with too much enthusiasm on the floor below, but it is the sound of the electricity in the walls which I notice the most. It is a sort of symphonic accretion of sound, a low background hum overlaid by a chorus of erratic squeaks and a steady high-pitched whistle. I sit in front of the computer and feel myself caught in a web of invisible impulses which ebb and flow in the air around me, ripping through my cells and creating an unseen turbulence in the tranquil spaces of our flat .

It is nothing like the lively night air in the bush, province of possums and owls : in that silence and that darkness you can feel yourself expanding, released from something confining which you notice fleetingly as it disappears. The night silence of the city vibrates with uneasy human sensation that makes the air contract around you.