The Listeners

by Jordan Tannahill

  What? she asked.

  The bathroom fan. Did you leave it on up there?

  She disappeared for a moment and then returned, shaking her head. I described the sound to her. She listened for a moment, and then shook her head again. Guess I’m just losing my mind, I said, shrugging.

  Perimenopause, she replied.

  What?

  It happens.

  You’re such a little wench. I’m forty.

  Old wench.

  Wench betch.

  Feigned cruelty was our preferred mode of address. I can’t remember how the wench thing began; just another inside joke that kept transmogrifying over the years. Other nicknames included Momma Wench, Momma Claire, Claire Danes, and Dame Wench. My top names for her included Ash Wednesday, Ashton Kutcher, and Ashscratcher. Paul joked only the NSA could decipher the encryption on our communication.

  Ashley looked down and brushed her shoulders. Or maybe it’s the solar storms, she said. Apparently they’re the largest ever. Did you hear about this?

  No.

  They’re going to mess with our electronics, and some scientists said maybe even with our moods and basic cognitive functions, so … She widened her eyes and then slipped from view, like an imp returning to her bottle.

  I wandered back into the dining room. There was something about the noise that seemed almost atmospheric. I looked up at the vent in the ceiling, walked over to the thermostat and turned off the air conditioner, but the hum persisted, all the more clearly. It occurred to me that it could be a vibration in the walls, or in the foundations of the house, perhaps from a micro-tremor. We’ve been known to get small earthquakes in the area from time to time. I walked over and touched the nearest wall but felt nothing. I put my ear up to it, and the sound didn’t change. I then knelt down and pressed my ear against the cool hardwood—again, nothing.

  Bear? Paul called from upstairs.

  I should have just left it then. I should have stood up, fixed my hair, and walked back up to bed. I should have folded myself into Paul’s warmth, closed my eyes, and put it out of my mind. That would have been the end of it, and my life would have stayed as it always had. But it was already too late. It had gotten under my skin. And believe me when I say that I’m not an obsessive person. I don’t fuss about details. I’m not a perfectionist. I couldn’t give a shit if the house is spotless, even for company. I’m usually very laid-back, in fact too much so sometimes for Paul’s liking (or the liking of his parents). But for some reason I just couldn’t let it go. A part of me was probably thinking that the sound indicated some issue with the house, which was still relatively new, and slapped-up quickly like all tract housing, and Paul was constantly finding problems with the pipes, or the air ducts, or the seals around the windows, which drove him crazy as he was always fastidious with his own work. But, if I’m honest, it went much deeper than that. The sound unnerved me. There was just something about it that wasn’t right, that wasn’t like any other bit of white noise I’d heard before, and I knew it would keep me up until I figured out what it was.

  I’ll be up in a minute, I called back.

  But I wasn’t. I stalked around the house for another two hours, long after Paul had given up on me and fallen asleep. I moved around in the dark, navigating furniture through muscle memory, stopping every so often to hold my breath and make myself as quiet as possible. The noise persisted, low and droning, with very little variation or modulation. Sometimes I thought I detected a slight bend in pitch, but then I think I was simply focusing on it too intently. I searched the living room, the basement, the garage, unplugging every appliance, the Wi-Fi router, the microwave, the TV, the hot water heater, gutting the smoke detectors of their batteries. At one point I even flipped the breaker. As I did, I suddenly remembered being six, and losing power in a lightning storm. There was something revelatory about the silence that followed. I never considered that our apartment had a nervous system, or that it whined so loudly. I marvelled that there were sounds we could only perceive in their absence, and found it unsettling to realize how much I had managed to condition myself not to hear. How much I had to tune out just to get by.

  Eventually I took two Ambien and crawled into bed, my heart pounding out of frustration. I stuffed a pillow over my head. After half an hour I fished a set of earplugs out of the drawer below the sink in the ensuite—but they did nothing. I lay there trying to meditate. I did some stuff with my chakras. I opened my eyes and saw the clock turn three. Then four. The noise wasn’t at all loud, in fact I’m sure most people would have had to strain to hear it, but to me, in the silence of the house, it began to feel all-consuming. It was a bit like overhearing a couple’s whispered conversation behind you at a restaurant and then being completely unable, for the life of you, to focus on anything else—not the noise of the other diners, not the waiter, not the person sitting right in front of you.

  By half past four, I couldn’t lie still a moment longer. I took out my earplugs, walked back downstairs, and out the front door. The night was warm. There wasn’t a breath of movement on the street. No wind disturbing the leaves, or planes tracing the sky. Just the smell of creosote and ionized air; of rain amassing somewhere in the distance. The stillness lent everything the uncanny feeling of a film set. Perhaps one of those horror films where some infernal force kills off the teenagers of the neighbourhood one by one. Those always seem to be set in suburbs like these—catalogue homes, young trees, driveways lined with SUVs. My eyes were scratchy. Raw. I felt cloudy from the Ambien. I crossed the front yard, walked out onto the street, and listened. It wasn’t in my head, or the house—it was there. It was coming from somewhere outside, maybe from next door or down the street, or maybe somewhere beyond our neighbourhood altogether; it was impossible to gauge its distance.

  Just then I noticed a shadow moving almost imperceptibly down the street towards me. I strained my eyes against the dark and watched as it drew closer. It slinked into the glow of a nearby streetlight and I realized it was a coyote. White-tipped ears and a white triangle of fur on his neck. He seemed too slight to be adult. He looked more like a teenager or a tween coyote, if there’s such a thing. It made me smile to see him. I often hear the coyotes as I lie in bed, barking and yipping out there in the night. But this one made no noise as he slipped back into darkness. I waited for him to reappear in the pool of light nearest me—but he didn’t. He was gone.

  I felt sorry for the coyotes. My neighbours hated them, because they dragged dogs and cats out of backyards and ate them. But that was just their nature. I had always felt a certain kinship with them; mangy interlopers in middle-class suburbia. My neighbours somehow forgot that the wilderness was just a block away. At the end of our street, the city gave way to badlands. The bottom of an ancient, inland sea where a vertical mile’s worth of sea creatures settled atop one another over millions of years, condensed, and liquefied into crude—which explained some of the three-car garages and grotesque McMansions in neighbouring subdivisions. If you looked at our city at night, from space, our suburb was like a little finger of light, poking out into the dark. We were at the far northern edge of the sprawl; of civilization. And the edge wasn’t sharp. In fact, it seemed to be getting blurrier. Sometimes the wild crept in and overturned garbage cans after sunset, or shat on your front step. Other times it was the neighbourhood boys going feral. Howling and smashing beer bottles against garage doors or firing Roman candles down the street.

  Claire?

  I startled and turned. Paul emerged from the shadows holding a golf club. What the hell is going on? he asked. I was standing in the middle of the street, barefoot and in my nightdress. I couldn’t imagine any neighbours were up at this hour, but we would’ve been quite the sight—me standing there below the streetlight, and my husband advancing towards me with a long iron.

  Bear, we’ve been tearing the house apart looking for you.

  Ashley’s up too?

  Yeah, we’ve been beside ourselves. The power’s out.
r />   I apologized and rubbed my face. I hadn’t meant to turn this into some big production. It was nothing, really, just a barely audible noise, and now all of us were awake at four in the morning, and Paul was holding a golf club, a golf club? I finally registered this and started laughing.

  I woke up and couldn’t turn on the lights, he said, drawing closer. I couldn’t find you anywhere. I thought someone was in the house. The front door was open, the furniture was all—It’s not funny, why are you laughing?

  So you thought you’d grab—

  It was what was at hand!

  Paul wore his emotions large and naked on his face; it’s something I’ve always found endearing, and sometimes teased him about when we watched movies. I laughed at the sheer panic on his face, but I also found it very touching. Paul had a rather rare heart condition for a man his age called compassion. He looked like ‘a big bruiser,’ as he would say, but when it came to his emotional intelligence, I would’ve put him in the upper one or two percentile of men I’ve encountered in my life. I’m sure his brothers characterized him as whipped and put upon, but then I would rather be waterboarded for eternity than married to any of them. I liked that my husband took up a nine-iron when he found me missing from bed. I recommend everyone find themselves a partner who picks up a nine-iron when they’re missing.

  What the hell is going on?

  I composed myself and shook my head wearily. I couldn’t sleep, I said.

  So you thought you’d wander outside at four o’clock in the morning in your nightgown, he replied.

  I didn’t know what facial expression I should be wearing, and I was too tired to even tell which one I currently had on, so I rubbed my hand over my face like an eraser. I’m trying to figure out where it’s coming from, I said. I told you—twelve, one, two o’clock I couldn’t sleep, I told you.

  Paul closed his eyes, stuck his thumb and index finger into the sockets, and said, I can’t believe you’re still talking about this fucking hum.

  And I can’t believe you can’t just shut up and listen.

  Did he seriously not hear it, even now that we were standing outside in the quiet of the night? He said I could use his earplugs, and I pulled them out of my nightgown pocket and tossed them on the ground.

  So what, you’ve just been out creeping around in the dark?

  I chuckled again at the absurdity of it all, I couldn’t help it. A bit sinister, isn’t it? I asked.

  Uh yeah, like a lot sinister, he said, softening.

  He was standing right beside me now, his eyes glistening in the streetlight. I realized, in the surprise of his approach, that I had forgotten about the coyote. I considered telling him about it, but decided to keep it as a private revelation. He wasn’t in the right headspace. I looked down at the ground for a moment, and then back up at him; his face was still a big, sweet drawing of concern.

  My hands were shaking, and I suddenly wished I had pockets to hide them in. I crossed my arms instead. Don’t dismiss this, I said.

  I’m not.

  Or think I’m exaggerating.

  No, I just—

  Then what?

  I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  I’m telling you.

  Okay.

  I’m more sensitive to these things.

  He made to rebut but swallowed and closed his eyes. I know, he said.

  You didn’t believe me before about the gas leak.

  That was a smell.

  Which I smelled and you didn’t and could’ve blown us up. I’ve felt earthquakes you haven’t felt. Twice I’ve heard when the radiator in the car was broken before you.

  Those things exist, Claire. This isn’t a thing.

  The shadows from the streetlight fell harsh on Paul’s face and made him look haggard. Old. He was standing an arm’s length away, but I felt very far from him. I told him I was sorry about the power. I didn’t mean to keep it off for long, I said, I just flipped the breaker for a moment to check.

  Wait, what? You cut the power?

  I told him I hadn’t intended to leave it off, I just needed to know, I needed the silence.

  You cut the power? Paul repeated, his disbelief giving way to anger.

  I just had to know it wasn’t in my head, and now I know it’s not, it’s—I gestured down the street—it’s out there.

  Where? Over there? The Campaneles’ yard? he said, pivoting around and pointing at our neighbours’ house. I knew he was being facetious, but the thought had actually occurred to me that the sound might be coming from the Campaneles’ pool pump, and I told him as much. He said no, there was nothing coming from their yard, stop being ridiculous, and I informed him that their new pool was, in fact, absolutely huge, as in practically a lake, and that I bet they needed a massive pump for it that probably ran throughout the night. I was always shocked, when I flew out of the city, just how many people had pools. In the desert! This landscape was never meant to sustain cities, let alone personal swimming amenities.

  Paul put the head of the golf club down on the asphalt and leaned against it like a jaunty cane. And what, are you going to pole-vault over their fence to investigate? he asked. I suggested walking over to their yard and at least seeing if I could hear it getting louder. I knew I was pushing it. Paul had a long fuse, but it wasn’t endless.

  And what if they see someone snooping around their backyard? he asked. They’ll call the police.

  Then when else am I going to?

  Leave it.

  I could just go over to their gate.

  No.

  I can’t afford to lose sleep over this.

  Paul looked astounded and replied that neither could he. The truth was the sound could have been coming from any of the houses or yards around us. I turned on the spot, taking in the street.

  Claire, it’s four-thirty in the morning, why’re you doing this to me?

  I’m not doing anything to you, I’m trying to figure this out.

  This? This is you doing something to me. Look at where we are. You’re not even wearing any goddamn shoes.

  As he continued to talk, I became aware of a slight pressure in my head. It wasn’t particularly painful; it wasn’t a headache, per se. It was more like a thickness. A fullness. As I focused on it, I realized I could feel it in my chest as well. It took me several moments to connect it to the sound. I realized that I was actually feeling the sound. Like waves of pressure. I felt it resonating in the cavities of my body; my skull. Permeating my empty spaces. As I thought this, I felt a tingling in my nose. I wiped it with my hand, and when I looked down, I noticed my hand was glistening with blood.

  Oh my god.

  What?

  My nose—

  I saw Paul see the blood. Jesus Christ, he murmured, and I told him to leave Jesus out of it. What’s wrong with you? he asked.

  Maybe you should try an exorcism.

  I think a Kleenex will do for now. Just hold your head back and let’s—

  Don’t—touch me. I took an unsteady step back. You’re just completely dismissing this, this, I said, holding out the bloodied back of my hand.

  The sound is giving you a nosebleed?

  Don’t say it like that.

  How am I supposed to say it?

  And what if it is, what if it’s pulverizing my brain, Paul, and you’re offering me earplugs and Kleenex.

  Just come inside. Please.

  Do you believe me?

  I—

  Look, I said, wiping a fresh smear onto my hand, as if that were proof enough. The nosebleed, the pressure, the sound, they did feel connected, and at least the blood was something tangible Paul could see. Say you believe me, I said.

  He bucked his head back, as if he was worried I was going to touch him with it. Frankly, I would’ve loved to have smacked a big red handprint on his face like a cave painting in Lascaux. He just couldn’t bring himself to say it. He insisted it was all stress induced, as in made up, as in stop being hysterical, and I said wow, sha
king my head and smiling without joy. Wow.

  Okay, he said, defeated. I believe you.

  That I hear something?

  Yes.

  And you believe that thing, that sound, really exists?

  He raised and dropped his arms, and asked, How can I possibly know whether the sound only you can hear—?

  Because I’m telling you, and that should be enough.

  He just looked at me like a dumb dog, and I turned and started walking away.

  Hey. C’mon. Where’re you—? What do you want me to say? You’re being completely insane.

  I stopped walking and yelped in frustration. It just burst out of me. I was shaking, with adrenalin. Am I throwing a little tantrum, I thought, yes, I think I am, right here in the middle of the street. I laughed at myself. Christ on a cracker. I was beyond the reach of even Paul’s compassion. Was that really it? Was that all he was capable of? I wanted to tell him I know what I fucking hear and it’s your deficiency, Paul, not mine, that you don’t believe me. I turned around to shout, but found him already beside me, reaching out, and enfolding me in his arms. I let him hold me for a long, still moment, until he said, with tenderness, I believe you.

  I wiped my nose. No, you don’t.

  I do. He whispered it into my ear and held me tighter. I do, I believe you. I believe you, and I love you. He pulled away, and I turned around to look at him. I love you, he said again.

  That’s when I noticed the sky beginning to lighten. A moment later, I heard the first trill of birdsong.

  Did you hear that? I asked.

  He sighed and shook his head. No.

  It’s morning.

  2

  I USED TO THINK JOGGERS WERE THE LOWEST FORM OF life on Earth. I vowed never to debase myself like that. And yet, within two years of moving to this area, I had a thirty-minute morning route. Even I was startled by the speed with which my conviction collapsed. On my morning runs I liked watching cars parked along the street emerge from the dawn mist. They seemed like armoured dinosaurs, or giant, prehistoric armadillos. Houses became the fog-cloaked cliff faces of some Mesozoic canyon. In this netherworld, I liked to imagine that all time existed on top of itself; ancient creatures living alongside those of the future. I was just as likely to happen upon a startled deer as I was a drone, piloted by some neighbour’s antisocial son. But most mornings I didn’t encounter a single other soul. It was usually the one time of day I could be alone with my body. When I could become pure motion.