For a few seconds I think I have found it. For a few seconds, once water has filled my ears and the gurgle of flooding canals has ceased, I hear no sounds in upper, middle, or lower frequencies. In my mind I shake my fists triumphantly, like a boxer who has knocked out a tough rival in the twelfth. Overall, I feel a full, tight awareness of nothing—a sort of presence-of-absence not that different from the split-second bubble of noise-canceling I got from the QCIII headphones on Columbus Circle.

George Michelsen Foy, Zero Decibels, loc. 197