I remember the time I read "Murke's Collected Silences" by Heinrich Böll for my Literature class (my professor required us to read awesome works like it). Set in the background of post-World War II, Germany, the protagonist, Murke is a young man who works in a radio station and exhibits strange habits. First, his morning begins with riding the lift all the way up to the highest floor of the company building and down to the floor where his office is located. Second, is his fondness of collecting snippets of silence from recorded tapes, thus the title. "When I have to cut tapes, in the places where the speakers sometimes pause for a moment—or sigh, or take a breath, or there is absolute silence—I don't throw that away. I collect it." He then splices it together to form recorded silence. Third, he listens to it at night in his home as a sort of relaxing meditation.
