Saturday, August 22, 2015

Noise, sound, or something else...

Write about a noise—or a silence—that won’t go away.The Pocket Muse: Ideas and Inspirations for Writing, Monica Wood

How about the sound of the laptop fan? Or the sound of the fan in the bedroom, my husband can’t sleep without the fan on in the bedroom in the summer. The bedroom fan sound usually fades into the background because we leave it on all the time, even when we’re not here. Most of the time I don’t notice that one. But there are still times, especially when I’m having trouble falling asleep, when that fan is so loud. I hate the sound of those fans. The laptop fan is particularly annoying because I can feel the vibration under my hands too, but you can’t use the laptop without the fan. Unless you want a dead laptop.

I don’t know why that low mechanical hum bothers me so much, but it does. Maybe it’s scientifical, maybe it bothers my eardrums or equilibrium or something because it’s a certain frequency. The fan frequency. The most evil frequency known to man. Earplugs help some, but sometimes it feels like I can still hear it. It's like I can feel it. Maybe it's just because I know it's there, on the other side of the earplugs. Waiting for me.
Agnes Moorehead can't get away from the noise of "The Invaders".
The Twilight Zone, property of  CBS Television Distribution

The buzzing of flies is very annoying too. Like that one over there! How come the stupid fly just HAS to be in the same room with me, on the window three feet away? What’s up with that, fly? There’s a whole rest of the house to do your mysterious fly business, such as walking up the same section of window frame a hundred times.

But back to the fans and the frequencies. That is a good research topic. That would be an excellent thing to include in a book, inducing fear or just plain driving someone up the wall or whatever with megahertz or  whatever it is they use to describe the sound. Probably it would be a good idea to learn how sound works. I like this idea!

Hey, science has my back. Thank you, science!


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