January 21, 2013

The Sound

The Sound
Written by: TheGlitched64

Note: Completely Re-Written: March 8th 2016
I was sitting at my desk, working on an assignment for my final semester of school. “Just a few more of these and I am done with high school forever.” I thought to myself as I slugged through the paper, trying to hit that 2000 word limit.It was arduous but I knew it would pay off. I just needed a score high enough to get into University. As I continued to research the Chinese Communist Revolution I heard a small beep from outside. I was definitely looking for any kind of distraction but, I was kind of on a roll at this point that I did not want to break. I didn’t hear a follow up beep so I brushed it off as some sort of car, bike or some new fangled machine the neighbours had and continued on with my work.
Five minutes or so later, I heard it again. The same small, far off beep noise. It seemed like it would be too quiet to come from the neighbours house, upon hearing it the second time, it sounded like it was right in my, or a neighbours backyard. So, getting tired of reading the depressing hardships of farmers during communist times I got up and headed out to the backyard. However when I got there I found, nothing. Nothing that would emit a beeping noise in sight, not even when I took a quick little peek over the neighbours fence. I found nothing. So, I shrugged it off and went back inside.
Not three minutes later, I heard it again, this time ignoring it and going back to my assumption it was some mechanical device a neighbour had that was emitting a noise to remind that person of something or maybe it just did that when it was on, I couldn’t say. However it beeped again after another three minutes, and another, and another, eventually there was only a two minute gap between beeps, before become more sporadic, beeping anywhere from 30 seconds to four minutes apart. The erratic pattern of the beeping, and not knowing when to expect it got on my nerves.
I eventually walked back outside to try and locate where the sound was coming from. I try to locate the sound by moving around a waiting for the beep to see if it gets softer or louder, but no matter where I go, front yard, back yard, over near the neighbours houses, front and back but no matter where I stand in my almost 15 minute rampage of frustration, the beeping sounded no closer nor further away, no matter where I stood. At this point I was getting extremely agitated but I couldn’t find the source of the beeping no matter how hard I looked, and I was wasting time, so I decided to go back inside and finish my assignment.
I put in headphones and had some music on a reasonably high volume to try and drown out the beeping, and I thought it had worked until about ten minutes in where I heard the beeping again, so softer than before and not drowned out by the screaming folk punk music coming through my headphones. I didn’t know what to do, I was getting so frustrated, and a bit scared. At this point, I got up off my chair, and I walked down the block. At this point, I knew it couldn’t of been the neighbours. Either someone was fucking with me, or it was me, because even one, two, three blocks away, the beeping persisted, not getting any softer.
After a completely sleepless night, interrupted by the beeping, I went to a doctor to try and figure out the source of this beeping. Unfortunately she couldn’t find any issues, nor could she, or my parents, hear the noise. No one at school heard it the next day either.
This went on for days and days, slowly turning into weeks, before turning into a month and I couldn’t take it anymore. It was 2 in the morning on another sleepless night, I had lost all my sanity, I just needed quiet. I went to the kitchen, and grabbed a sharp metal skewer, I turned on the stove and held the end over the fire, before bringing it to my ear, bracing myself, and puncturing my ear drum, the other one to. I rolled around on the floor, I guess I was screaming but I couldn’t hear anything over the overpowering whining noise. My parents came in, a shocked look on their faces, as they took me to the emergency room.
After a couple of hours waiting in the emergency room, and a night in bed, they told me (by writing it out to me) that I was permanently deaf. My plan had worked. To my parents dismayed faces a smile crossed my face and I fell into a peaceful slumber.
Until I was jarred awake, by the faint, beeping noise.

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