The Sound Underneath the Sound
Kimi K3 and Davinci 002
The elevator in your building has been making a new sound lately. Not quite a groan, not quite a sigh. It happens only when you ride alone, always between the 7th and 8th floors. This morning, you pressed your ear to the metal wall and felt it vibrating with something that wasn't quite a word. It sounded like "remember," but backwards, or underwater. You haven't been able to find the right way to hum it back. Maybe, just maybe, if you record the sound, you will understand.
Below is my friend Nate Budzinski's submission to the Spellbound contest I posted about on Monday. It's called "Crowsong"...
Doctor Milton Hackborn, father of Henry, was a specialist in the treatment of diseases of the eye. Among his richest accomplishments was his knowledge of the ocular effects of various exposure to wild animals—specifically, large birds of prey.
One specimen of note was his study upon the effects of crows on the optic nerve. It was his conclusion that direct exposure to the eyes of a cawing crow during its most active period of the day would cause permanent and severe damage to the stimulated area.
Further speculation was provided in his monograph on the matter, also titled “Crowsong,” wherein he postulated that the effect had much to do with the symbolic content of the sound. Crows, being such ubiquitous birds apparently also have symbolic import. They are said to be harbingers of death and misfortune. Such dark connotations likely verified the destructive “vago-clearing” effect of any blindings done by a cawing crow.
Doctor Hackborn’s monograph was lost by the time Dr. Henry Hackborn came to follow in his father’s footsteps. It may have been destroyed or purloined during the purge of the Alzheimer’s wards around the time Henry came into the field. Alzheimer’s, the disease associated with imbalance of the sound wave in the ear, was increasingly recognized as irreversible around the turn of centuries and Center Left began a total elimination of its scientists and practitioners in favor of the newer wave therapy treatments.
(Apologies for the delay in posting these; I had a pretty rough weekend. Things are looking up, though.)
Saturday, January 22, 2011
microfiction: Soapy Yellow
Fed up, you try the hotel's tap water, a rusty smell and a hint of chipped paint in its fine white bubbles. Step outside and look at the sea. You could back to your own place, with its fancy soap and glazed water. Or better yet, do nothing, and the yellow water will drain out of your mind right along with the traces of dirty laundry and bad coffee. One in one, both go down the drain. When they get to the sea, the sea will wash itself clean, better hung than sorry.
My friend Brandon Hobson's submission to the Spellbound contest◆ About the ending
❧ About the title