Swish, swish, spit,

and a hiss of running water.

The gurgle of a toilet flush,

and the knock of a switch.

Slippers scuffing hardwood.

Bedroom carpet ignites a static zap.

A dial clicks for a fireplace crackle.

Soft ruffling of blankets.

His heavy chest exhales relaxation.

Mine, a squeal of excitement.

Click clack of a cat claw.

Against the wooden floor, he creeps.

Tick Tock from the grandfather clock,

and a Soothing hum from the oscillator.

Snap and pop of a vanilla-bean candle.

The anticipating tap of fingernails on a hardcover.

Pages rub against pages under the flickering light—

A friction I will always love.

The inviting echos of a noir crime—left unsolved

then the constant thrum of silence…

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

…Abrupt buzzing. The clock reads 7:00 am.

The unfinished murder will have to wait until my next lullaby begins.

Tinkle goes the piano

as the radiator hissed

and the truck caused quite the rumble

while my old windows rattled.

Day-Z gently purred,

ignoring it all.

The air conditioner is buzzing. And my dogs snores softly. The alarm chimes. Then a click of the button. There's the tap of my feet on the ground. The patter of the showers water. My phones chimes. My sister sobbed. The engine roared. The hospital lobby is filled with chatter. It sounds far away. "I'm sorry for your loss." There's a ringing in my ears. The screams of my sister. Ringing of church bells. Words of remembrance.

Generators.

If there is no electricity from the government, you'll hear them in every neighbourhood,

Many of the small shops,

Because electricity is life, right?

I'm too sensitive in hearing to live in a country like Nigeria.

My body is too un-fond of loudness to be forced to hear this repeated buzzing -

Angry buzzing of a mechanical, dog-sized bee.

It's a cry in a barren desert filled with nothing but scarcity.

An attempt to do better, be better than our leaders.

An act of self-reliance and yet we pay them for electricity anyway

The money bleeds from pockets,

Fuel prices get higher,

They give us next to nothing for the price of much.

I wonder what our ancestors would say if they could see us.

I suppose it depends on which one.

Humans are an enigma.

Perhaps some would count us lucky.

Our smart phones, our smart watches, our ingenious machines.

The fans and the acs and the coolers, all designed to subvert the conditions of a sweltering climate.

I think if I was one of them, I would laugh

At the brilliant tech designs of our age -

Ask what it means to have these magical boxes of so-called goodwill

When the British still rob us of our resources - with the Chinese and the Americans and the French and Lucifer knows what else.

O Africa, my Africa my ass.

Look who we were before colonialism.

As with PTSD, there is a before and an after

And I am afraid we will never be able to recover that person.

The body is weak, its inhabitants are too tired to be angry and too angry to allow themselves rest

Madness is as common as it is hidden

The world is in flames, even for our exploiters, past and present.

We kill our planet,

Pollute our world with noise and fumes,

Desperate upon desperate to live on

The cost bleeds us dry

But we force ourselves to carry the burden our leaders only increase

As long as we have our tvs and acs and fans and pretty fluorescent lights.

They help us to forget and who would deny themselves memory loss in times such as these?

The generators purr on.

Our ancestors watch, silent, shaken.

I suppose they might not laugh, after all.

I think they would weep.

Shrieking cries rang through the streets. Children's screams permeated my ears. White noise enveloped me. Tires screeched on the roads, leaving the sound of thunder in their wake, like bees buzzing over a flower or fleeing from a bear.

My ears perked at the howls above me, one a booming shout, the other a pitchy cry. Their unharmonious wails piercing. The roaring white noise was deafening, the crackles of heat were all that remained, as the screams above me became more hushed to nonexistent.

There were no more shrieks. No screams. No thunder or buzz. Just white noise. The white noise was closing in, my gasps for air shallow, the crackling echoing. Bustling heat swallowed me. Then silence.

"Help me..."

"I'm trying to study for chem. Trying not to fail chem."

"OMG he has such a perfect bod"

"Remember what the formula is - just divide decimals by 10"

"Ugh I had Mr. T last year. Would not want him next year."

"Ok say it's 300 hertz. If you're looking at... um..."

"Are you a tutor?"

"Yeah, for Algebra 2."

"Oh."

"I'm saying if you're moving 50 and those cars are moving with you at 80, their net movement is 30, so treat you like this."

"Between Chem and Physics there are so many Ks. Kp, Ka, Kb, Kw, K spring constant, etc. etc."

"Wait can you print the slides?"

"Um no I don't feel like it."

Click

Boom

Bang

Scream

Gasp

Slam

Slam

Keys

Slam

Slam

Vrooooom

Sob

Shaky breath

Yell

Shout

Cry

Glass shatter

Smack

Bang

Scream

Gasp

Thump

Thump

Thump

Moan

Cry

Sob

Shout

-I N A U D I A B L E-

Beep. . .

Beep. . .

Beep. . .

Sniffle

Soft close

Whispers

Gasp

Cry

Yell

Scream

Thump

Slam

Cry

Scream

Beep. . .

Beep. . .

Beep. . .

Mumble

Hand against hand

Sob

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

Scream

Cry

Shout

Shout

Slam

Shout

Scream

Cry

Bang

Cry

Gunshot

Gasping

Shaky Breath

Whispers

Creak. . .

Creak. . .

Ba-Dum

Ba-Dum

Ba-Dum

Yell

Scream

Dirt

Shovels

Metal

Scrape

Scrape

Scrape

Cry

Thump

Whimper

Talk

Talk

Talk

Vroom

C R A S H

Siren

Siren

Cry

Shout

Scream

Gag

Thump

Drip

Drip

Drip

Shut

Click

Cough

Thump

Cry

Whisper

Creak

Whimper

Slam

Sigh

Hum

MMmmmmmMMMMMMmmmmmmMmMmM

S C R E A M

-=+Repeat+=-

Mom yelling.

Dad shouting.

I let out a muffled sob.

Glass breaking.

Dad stopped shouting.

Mom's steady footsteps.

The glugging of liquid then the clink of a wine glass.

The door opens, then it's shuts loudly.

I scream.

Sly tinkerers slow tinker in grandly queer labor

Pitting each tooth to the cylindered comb

Locked in precision and processed in kind

Coiffing the air in soothing arrays.

Melodic machinations afoot

Inert silence held fast on a tube

Stampedes of canonical motion unsprung

Caramelized confections bless the ears.

Each note sweet-honeyed, prickled precise

Timbre-honed in coraled paths of melody

Metallic musical adventures in motion

Course mysterious parts of my mind.

Tinkling rings discordant 'til tinkerers tinker

Aligning the unfocused sense of it all

And flow mellisonant to ears unfettered

As Sirens' songs too dear for heroes' ears.

This is a re-post, which I thought fit into this challenge.

Inspired by my antique music box constructed by the Swiss Mermot brothers.

The clock ticks.

Each tick revolves around its axis, clicking into place around an eternity of silence lost.

The too large bed aches under my turning body.

Shuffling covers can never soothe.

While the wind blows and the floor creeks, a midnight car washes through the streets. With the earplugs in, I still hear it, but it’s mixed.

It’s mixed with the pounding of my broken heart.

The tears are silent but the rasping throat is not.

The dying hum of my computer—it mocks me. The rain, the sounds that used to lull me, pelter my window. The shuffle of tissues never seem to stop.

Only when the birds begin to sing do I stop hearing my own convulsions of grief. The thud of the box is what I last remember before the alarm rips me back into cold reality. The clock ticks once more.