QUIET!

My mental scream only seems to make the fan buzz louder. The clock ticks more thunderously. The breathing sleepers roar like lion-voiced vacuum-cleaners. Ban, bang, bang – time is measured. Uzz, uzz, uzzzzzzzzzzz – air is moved. Shuuh-ahh, shuuh-ahh, SHUUH-AHH – breath roars.

I probably have a fever, and a headache, and a few other things (insomnia anyone?), but these are all dwarfed in comparison to my massively short temper. How can a temper be massive and short? you wonder. Oh, leave me alone.

I stumble out of bed and stagger to the bedroom door. As I turn its handle, a click shoots through the air like the sound of a bullet. I wince. My teeth grind like millstones as the cursed hinges wail ‘eeeeerieeeeee’. The door closes behind me. Stillness.

But it is only the stillness of change.

A whole new array of sounds lurk in the hall. The screaming whine of digital clocks from the kitchen. The murderous boom of the giant living-room clock. Bang, bang, bang, BU-ANG-

ARGH.

I collapse through the bathroom door (no, not through it, dummy! The doorway-). It closes behind me. Another bullet-blast. Silence.

I hate my heart. Bu-doom, bu-doom, bu-doom it stomps in my chest. Literally! The sound crushes me. I feel like a dinosaur is planting its huge, gnarly, reptilian foot on my chest and brain and eyes and stomach all separately but at once and over and over and over-

I hold my breath. Doesn’t help. I plug my ears. So much worse. I hit the floor in random patterns to drown out the incessant beat, but my blows always conform to it. Bu-doom, bu-doom, bu-doom, BU-DOOM-

QUIET!!!!!!!!!!

Is there NO way to solve this? My eyes stray up the sleeping-pills on the bathroom shelf. People say sleep is silent. No, not that kind of sleep. Breathing-sleep means dreams, and they are SO much noisier than life. Non-breathing sleep would be nice though. They say the grave is so silent, so silent . . .

Forget it. The grave is so silent it hurts. But I need to find something! Some sort of sound other than this forever clamor that I cannot change and cannot conquer, nor can I escape or find something more, and-

AGGGGHHHHH!

Don’t worry, the screaming is all in my head. Wouldn’t want to wake the family up. Need to survive until morning. In the morning, this nightmare will pass. In the morning I’ll laugh at my current craze. Right now, I need to survive. Breathe. In – out. In – out. Hsshhh-nuuuuh, hsshhh-nuuuuh, hsshhh-nuuuuhhhhhh.

I sprawl across the bathroom floor, staring blankly at the light-bulbs above me. They flicker softly. I frown. I listen. They’re . . . buzzing? No, there’s a note in there. Each one a different kind: white, yellow, and . . . yellow-white. They’re singing, each a different tune. I close my eyes. I listen. How lovely. It almost sounds like that thing comic-artists use for when their characters are sleeping.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz . . .