“In your own words describe it to me.”
He inhaled and studied the floor. Describe? How?
The man across from him sat unblinking– unmoving.
“Uh… um…” He felt stupid. “What do you want me to say, it’s a sound.”
“Yes but what exactly is the sound? Anything is helpful.” The man leaned in over the table studying his face..
“Kinda bright?”
“Bright like a good bright or Bad?”
“Just bright?”
“Is that a question?’
“I don’t know.”
“Well I sure don’t.” The man leaned back, shifting sideways and digging out a cigarette. He waved his hand at him to continue while he lit up.
How is this so hard to describe? It’s not like anything I’ve heard but I’ve always known the sound, like a part of myself. Like fingernails. How do I tell you about fingernail tapping on a surface when you’ve never had fingernails or seen a surface? How to describe the deepest part of yourself?
“It’s very me.”
“You?”
“Yes, me.”
“What part of you?”
“The me part, like y’know– the me-ness.”
“Uh-huh the me-ness of you… I see.” The man made a gesture and the olive green door immediately opened.
A technician came in. She was very odd with her bright red heels and straight-from-the-box lab coat. He doubted her legitimacy as she leaned over him, much too close, waving a device.
“What are we doing here?” He leaned back as far as his cuffed hands would allow. She matched his retreat and pushed in flicking her wand about. Her perfume was rancid.
“Specialized recording device. It picks up the slightest sounds.” The man answered his thoughts, absently tapping ash on the table.
“Right.” He looked up and away watching the cigarette smoke crawl along the ceiling; it was as trapped as he was.
What was she doing now? He looked down to see her staring up at him from beneath his chair; the wand sliding up and down him. He got a good look at her ‘specialized recording device’ and it looked suspiciously like a flat iron.
“Are you ser–” he looked towards the man sitting across from him but his words skipped. The technician was sitting in front of him. “ –ious?” He darted a look down while keeping one eye on the technician. No one was there.
“Where did–?”
“Where did what?”
“My interviewer? he was just…” He looked at the red door.
She looked at him bewildered, tapping ash on the table “It’s just you and me. Please, do continue with this you-ness you can hear.”
“Um, right.” His head hurt. “Did you pick anything up with your wand?”
“Wand?” Her face was more bewildered than his. “What wand?”
“THE WAND! You were all over me with it… I…”
Her face had a look of disgust. “Focus on why we’re here: the sound.”
The red door opened without warning and the man slipped in wearing olive green heels. His cologne was horrid.
“Do you have the recording?”
“Yes ma’am.” he sheepishly placed a remote on the table and hurried back out.
“But I thought you didn’t record anything?”
“Of course we did. Don’t be silly.” She picked up the remote and hit every other button starting from the top.
A speaker from somewhere began playing it back. It was there! It had the sound!
“There. You hear it? See why I couldn’t describe it? It’s so… so…”
“You?”
“Maybe, but now that you’ve heard it’s not just me.”
“Oh there’s nothing on the recording. It’s blank, but if you hear it, I’m sure it’s there.”
“If you don’t hear it, why do you believe I can?”
“Because you are you.”
“Yes I’m me but who am I to you?”
“You.” She smiled warmly then thoughtfully turned to the remote and began disassembling it, laying each piece neatly next to the other.
There was now a small pile of ash, a remote, two double AA’s and the battery cover from the remote laid out in front of them like some complicated weapon.
“What kind of nonsense is this?” He yanked at the cuffs disturbing her collection of things.
She jumped up enraged slamming her fists on the table. “What is the sound?!”
He jumped. “I dunno know? How do I describe a sound that is nothing like anything that you know?”
“LIAR!” She spat the word at him. “Of course you know you’ve heard it, you’re just keeping it for yourself!”
“I’m no! Honest!” He looked deep into himself trying to find something that was there but somehow not. “It sounds like a sound that I don’t know but hear over and over. I could make up a random word but what good would it do?” He finished quietly. “Is that what you want?
“NO!” It was as much a wail as a shriek.
“Give me the me sound! The sound that is you!” Her hair came undone bobby pins dropping everywhere. She was panting– salivating.
“I can’t make the sound I hear. I don’t know how!” He attempted it to do something but all that came out was air.
She scoffed at him “You and your selfish you sound. Is it nice to hear the you sound?”
He looked down at his hands cuffed to the table. “I guess? I’ve always heard it so it’s just there. I don’t dislike it.” He looked up.
The man was lighting another cigarette.
“Why do you want to hear the me sound?”
“Because it’s never been heard.”
“But I’ve heard it so it has been heard.”
“Has it though? Do you really hear it if it’s only you?”
“What?”
The man inhaled, taking the cigarette all the way down to the filter, his eyes bulging, half lifting from his seat. He was frozen watching the man’s ash wondering when it would fall: it never did. The man slipped it out from between his lips and flicked it at the olive green door, his eyes still bulging. In one fuming breath the man unleashed a flurry of thoughts, the smoke rolling out with each word.
“If you can not describe the sound because no one has heard the sound then is it a sound at all? You always what? Hear it… Singing? Ringing? Playing? Happening? Rolling? Bouncing? Echoing? His voice edged higher with each verb hangin on the last one. After a moment the life went out of his face and he fell back into the chair locked in a coughing fit.
His skin was crawling. He needed to come up with something– anything! “Is a thing only a thing if only another thing can experience it?”
The man looked at him worn out. “Perhaps.”
“Why do you believe that the sound I hear is a thing at all? Doesn’t a sound need a thing to make a sound so the sound is always something? I need to tell you the something making the me sound.”
“YES! THAT! Tell me the something.” The man sat up, he liked this idea, his eyes greedy and bright.
“Well…” He started slowly, looking at the floor gathering his thoughts. “If only I hear the sound and It’s never been heard before and it’s everywhere that I go then it leads me to believe…”
“Yes! Yes! To believe?”
“...that the sound is coming from something inside me, and if the something is in me then it’s a part of me, so it is me. He looked up.
The technician looked like a cat on the chair, her knees folded under her chin, the lab coat pulled down over them, lapping up every word.
“The sound is you?”
“I think so…”
Her eyes flashed. “YOU!” She accused him angrily twisting the wand in her hands. “You are the sound that has never been heard, not your voice, but inside you there is something making a sound that is you. That is the you-ness you can’t describe?”
“Probably?” He stared at her unsure what he was even saying himself.
The room felt so dark and small in that moment. Smoke haloing around the light dangling above them, like a scale weighing. He fidgeted; his body ached.
She started muttering still perched on the chair, twisting the wand round and round. “You-ness. Me-ness. You-ness. Me-ness. Soundness. You sound. Me sound. New sound.” Her eyes passed through him.
The olive green door opened as if in response. The man entered, timidly tap-tapping in his bright red heels till he stood behind him. He could feel the man’s short little nervous breaths tickling the hairs on the top of his head. His knee started bouncing.
“You sssound is new sssound.” Her voice hissed like some primordial force took over.
He just stared back.
“We want new sssound ssso If sssound inside…” She didn’t finish, she just stood up.
The light blocked out most of her face but he could see her hungrily biting her lip.
The man grabbed his shoulders, shoving him down in his seat. He let out a yelp, his arms pulled taut against the cuffs almost sliding off the chair. She hiked up her lab coat and placed an olive green heel on the table cigarette ash grinding beneath it.
She crouched.
He melted; he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move. He just looked forward in terror as she launched herself across the table clawing and grabbing at his face, screeching. Her fingers pulling at his nostrils, her hands gripping his chin forcing it open.
He relaxed, his eyes closing, his mind fully tuned to the sound: his me-ness, as she plunged the wand down his throat.
