Scrap

I live in a small municipality in the heart of the Philippines, where people are more concerned about the moisture of the soil and the next harvest rather that what’s happening to the rest of the world, its the place where only a few households have TVs and even fewer have WIFI.

I own a small phone repair business in town, I mostly work on old banged up android phones, which is what most of the people here can afford, business is ok, I guess, considering in this town smartphones are our only connection to the outside world, with mobile data at least we could access the internet.

I live in a small house a few kilometers outside of town, and every since my mother died, I’ve been living by myself. a few years ago, I bought a motorcycle, I was pretty proud of that purchase since its the first significant thing I bought for myself, I even bought an intercom for my helmet, not that I have anybody to link it with, since most of the people in this town don’t even wear helmets. I bought it so I could link it to my phone and listen to music while riding.

After a few weeks listening to music while riding my motorcycle I noticed I would always hear this static-like sound every time I passed this patch of road on my way home. The static was odd at first, but after a few weeks, it became just another part of my commute, easily ignored.

One day while riding that same patch of road, my brain was already expecting that same static-like sound I hear everyday, but this time it sounded a bit different, so It immediately got my attention so I listened closely and I thought I heard a woman’s voice.

I stopped on the side of the road, taking my helmet off to check if I could hear the voices without my intercom. I felt the cool late afternoon breeze. It was a dirt road in the middle of recently plowed rice fields, so I could smell the mud in the air, and there was nothing around as far as my eyes could see.

I put my helmet back on, just in time to hear the blood curdling screams of a woman, I thought maybe someone was in a motorcycle accident, and they got thrown into the muddy rice fields. I got off my motorcycle and walk around a bit to try to figure out where the sound might be coming from. I noticed the sound was getting louder as I got further off the road into the fields on the right.

I consider myself to be person of at least average intelligence, I don’t usually go running into a random rice field in the middle of nowhere every time I hear random sounds in my ear. But If there really was an accident and people need help, no one else can help them.

So feeling all heroic, I walk down the muddy field, I tried to follow the sound, but I can barely see the pilapil (the narrow dike farmers walked on between the rice fields) since it was getting dark, I fell off it a few times and stepped on the muddy rice field but I pushed on, I must have looked stupid walking alone in the middle of the rice field alone with a motorcycle helmet on.

As the sound gets clearer and louder, I noticed it was repeating again and again, like a recording on loop. Eventually I got to a place where the static sound was so much louder and the woman’s voice was so clear as if she was standing in front of me.

It sounded like she was saying “someone help the kids, please help the kids”, and I could also make out other people in the background, I think they’re praying or something. I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight, searching for anything transmitting the recording. It was hard to see with my helmet on, all I can see were churned mud everywhere, but then something caught my eye, something shiny was sticking out of the mud, I take a closer look at it and it looks like a piece of metal partially buried in the mud.

I dug it out of the mud and picked it up to took a closer look at it, it’s mostly rusted but I can make out some traces of blue paint on it. I’m not sure where its from. it’s really just a piece of scrap metal in a rice field on the side of a dirt road, that’s not really uncommon.

I took it with me and walked back to my motorcycle, the “recording” kept playing on a loop in the same volume and clarity as it was when I picked up the piece of scrap metal. As I got close to the road, the sound suddenly stopped, and it was complete silence.

That’s when I realized that I was standing alone on the side of an empty road in the middle of nowhere and it was already dark. For some reason, that was the time I got scared, not when I heard the woman screaming in my ear and not when I was walking alone in the middle of a rice field. So I put the piece of metal in my pocket, hopped on my motorcycle as fast as I could and got back on the road.

The ride home was uneventful, no static, no voices or anything weird. It got me thinking, what if this piece of metal in my pocket had nothing to do with the sound at all, nothing happened when I picked it up, and the sound just randomly stopped even though I had the thing on my hand.

When I got home, I took another look at the piece of metal, I couldn’t find anything interesting about it.

In this part of the world, radio dramas are popular, people love to listen to them all day long and they could get over the top sometimes. What if there was a radio tower nearby that was broadcasting a radio drama and for some reason my intercom just caught the transmission, and I stupidly walked in the middle of a rice field with a motorcycle helmet on and picked up a random piece of scrap metal sticking out in mud then suddenly sprinted back to my motorcycle like a crazy person. That would be really embarrassing if someone was actually watching me from afar, wondering what I was doing.

I went to bed feeling stupid, and woke up the next day forgetting all about it. Then I got on with my life as if nothing happened. In the next few days, I never heard anything strange in that road again, no screaming woman, not even the static sound.

On my day off, I was just sitting at home all day, and I got bored so I decided to go for a ride, so I got changed and put my helmet on, when I turned on my intercom, my eyes widened as I heard the same familiar scream again, but this time I’m nowhere near that road, I was in my house.