Why does the noise never ever stop ? Something about this place. There's always that piercing hum. That throbbing sound of modern existence. This is something different. I've not been able to sleep for days. It's like my own personal torture chamber.
I've heard of those devices that shops use to scare away teenagers. Emitting a sound that can only be heard by the ears of adolescents. I'm neither near a shop or being a teenager. It can't be that.
It never seems to vary, never pauses - not even for a moment. It's always there, as constant as a heartbeat but as disruptive as a badly tuned radio. I've searched all round the house and failed to find the source. I've turned off every single appliance I own, one by one. It didn't work. I just had more silence in which to hear the sound.
I've laid motionless in darkened rooms at night. All alone in my bed. Just me and the noise. But still the ever present sound is there. Imagine lying awake, night after night. Staring at the same ceiling. I've managed to read more books than ever because of all the time I've been awake when I'd rather have been sleeping. At some point fatigue overtakes me and exhausted I fall into a fitful but still exhausting sleep.
I even leant out the window, embracing the warm summer air, searching in vain for some faulty streetlight, running car or air conditioning fan, something, anything that was causing the disruption. I've never been able to find it.
When it first started, (not that I can remember when that was anymore) I asked my neighbours what they thought this invasive annoying sound was. The looks they gave me varied from 'what the hell are you talking about you crazy, crazy bitch' to 'don't talk to me, just don't talk to me !'. Friendly sorts. I was very upset by their reactions. All I can say is I understand why most people don't talk to their neighbours these days. Who would want to ? Now I can't recall how it felt before the noise. I begin to even doubt such a time existed.
I'm not sure how much longer I can maintain a normal existence. I'm barely functioning as it is. I can't find a source of the grating sound anymore than I can find a decent night's sleep. My mind is starting to play tricks on me. Teasing me with images of impossible things and with half formed memories of things I have or have not done. I find I can't absorb details at all well and find myself crying for entirely insignificant reasons. This noise is robbing me slowly of my faculties.
I simply do not know what to do anymore. All I want is silence and a decent nights sleep. Is it really too much to ask for ?
What if it is just inside my head ? What if there is nothing external causing it ? I've heard it now for so long. A strange madness that follows me like a shadow. Such an imprint it has made on my very being that I could no longer say I can remember what it sounds like not to hear it. Am I just recreating the sound in my head ? Am I stuck processing a sound over and over again that I heard, or maybe never ever heard at some point in the past ?
The only good thing is I've given up drinking coffee. There gets a point when no matter how much you drink, no matter how shaky you get with caffeine overdose, the coffee simply cannot be strong enough to combat the endless feeling of exhaustion.
I could swear I just saw a fox walk calmly across my bedroom floor. I'm at the point now where I'm no longer phased by the prospect that maybe one did.
I just want it to stop. Please. Please. Please, make it stop. I don't know how much longer I can go on like this. Please. Make it stop !!
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