＃１１５

    Just a little white noise. That’s all he needed. Just a little white noise to blanket the auditory highs—motorcycles, ambulances, joggers and the like—and uplift the eerie lows. The lows are worse, for him. His thoughts need to bounce off something, or be soaked up, or he would feel very alone. Or was it that in silence he thought more, to ward it off or illuminate it, and in the breaks between his thoughts the silence won and dark came in and he would feel very alone. Either way. The lows were worse.
    Just a little white noise was all he needed so he put on a white noise generator and thought a second in it and itched very badly so he turned it off. A thought itch. Too constant, that’s what he thought. TV screen static. Pressurised. Even worse, so he turns it off and looks again. White noise, pink noise, brown noise. Try the brown, and... heavy. Heavy heavy heavy. The whole weight of the ocean crushing him in, a cargo ship breaking water with its heavy bow, pointed right at him, unstoppable, all mechanical and heavy, he can feel his heart stopping so he turns it off and breathes. Breathes. Breathe.. Alright. Pink noise, let’s try the pink noise and the pink is the worst of both worlds so he turns it off and breathes. He doesn’t itch. Just for a moment. Relief. His ears slowly attune back to the world—the passing riff of a sedan. Can tell it turned by the volume—now it's off again, now gone. Silence... the sting of thought comes back.
    He puts on rain. A loop. He puts it on very soft and he couldn’t tell you but it’s the white noise he needed while the white noise wasn’t. Very soft. He works awhile. The loop stutters. The transition between tracks. He increases the crossfade. Still no good. Finds another loop. It says continuous. Very soft, very soft. Eyes on the track timer.  two fifty eight . . two fifty nine . . three . . zero . . oh one . . oh two , no break, continuous. Very good. Keep it soft. He works awhile.

    Four Thursdays pass. He feels looser. He doesn’t slouch as much in his chair. Has been productive, actually. A small habit bundle comprised of tea, menthols, and the rain loop at volume 14 has set in. Always even numbers, with everything, and 14 is the right number. He’s comfortable, and he works awhile.
    Then—the sting of thought. Echolocating and finding nothing. A low. The lows were worse for him. The lows are back.
    He checks the rain loop. Still at 14. The right number. Nothing to worry about. So he works. But not awhile. The low remains. The low remains and is something to worry about. It is at 8, by his estimate. A loud silence. And climbing. The low is climbing. How long has it been climbing? The thought stops and the silence is there at eight. Eight . . eight . . . . eight point one. The low daggers at him, reaches up with its dark wet hand and nicks him from below. Enemy. Enemy enemy enemy he reaches out and puts the rain at 20 and waits.
    Nothing. The right kind of nothing. A rain nothing, distinguishable now as a porch rain or a forest rain, some earthy frequency there, a dampening for the low. 20. The right number. He works awhile.

    Two Thursdays pass. He feels alright. He is out of menthols. He works awhile.
    There is a sting of thought. A low. But this time he doesn’t think about it. He puts the rain up right away. Rain at 32. The new number, and the right one.
    He can make out more about the rain at 32. It is a porch rain, as he thought. He knows this before he knows how he knows, but he listens a little, and figures it out. Raindrops are landing at different heights, and on wood. The heights he can tell by the volume. The wood he can tell by a moderate smack—dampened less than on grass, more than on metal. Altogether, a porch and railing. A porch and railing at 32. He feels alright and he works awhile.

    No Thursdays pass. It is Sunday. He feels very badly and is out of tea and menthols. He does not work awhile but wishes he would so he sits at his desk and puts the rain at 32. Things are very loud, his thoughts are loud, but the rain is at 32 which is the right number so he sits and waits for a working mood to creep up on him, but instead of a working mood he finds only thoughts, his thoughts, and then thoughts about thoughts, thoughts about thoughts about thoughts and in the very loud there is a thought that he simply must quiet all this and get to work so with all he can he thinks not to think, thinks it as hard as he can, and in his brief successful still of mind he finds not solace but a low. The lows are worse for him. The lows are worse for him and climbing.
    He is not going to fuck around this time. He puts the rain at 66. To kill the low. To kill the low but always at even numbers, right numbers, right numbers like 66. The rain is unbearably loud and his skull threatens to cave in but he must drown out this low so he closes his eyes and listens awhile as best he can to everything, anything else. There is a porch. Yes, a porch—he starts there. There is a porch and railing and stairs, half metre stairs, sagging down into what once was a garden. A wooden roof, loose boards... creaking, all. A heavy drip from a hanging plant or feeder. Somehow he knows that it is nighttime and that behind him is a damp wooden door, slightly ajar, encapsulating a hallway that never dries. At the end of the hallway a pale trapezoid of light expands outwards from the kitchen—a prospect of home, of warmth and food and wet coat off at last, but turning the corner he finds the kitchen just as cold and wet as all the rest of it. Wretched olive tiles... the decor threadbare, dim. Nothing but condiments in the pantry and no-one home to use them. Not now. Not ever again.
    Back on the porch, there is another light on, too, cobwebbed and sputtering into the dark where a sharply pitched wind he hadn’t noticed at 32 rises and falls and cuts at him through the rain. It is sharpened to a point. It is sharpened to a point and nicks and cuts at him, and as it cuts he sees out along its white tail, kitelike to its diamond head, stretching across the yard and into the forest where it has worked its way serpentine through trees to get to him, and as he sees along its tail and hears it pitch up again he thinks he hears voices underneath. Underneath that which was underneath, he thinks, and pricks his ears, hearing rain and porch but——
    He can’t make the voices out. His head is pounding. The rain is at 66 . . the rain is at 66! He can't hear the voices because the rain is still at 66...! Sixty six is the wrong number !
    He puts the rain to 100.