By Trina Machacek
There are sounds around us all the time. Of course the ones in the middle of the night, where the little hairs on your arms stand at attention. Those sounds are of the frightening pile of sounds. But. Yes, a sound producing “but.” What about annoying sounds. Past the ones that set your teeth on edge. Over and above the words that drone on and on from the mouth of someone that sets your teeth on edge. No, let’s talk about the sounds that you cannot put your finger on.
Trina Machacek
The first one that comes to mind may be a squeak or a rattle in your car. It’s in the dash. No it’s in the glove box. No it’s coming from up under there where the heat is coming out of the duct. It doesn’t squeak all the time. Just when the wheel is turned to the left, when you are going about 44.75 mph. Only when you are driving along Maple Street. During a month that ends with “Y.” Yes, that kind of a maddening sound. Okay, now here’s the story.
I am sitting in my house on a quiet Saturday summer morning, having a glass of iced coffee. I deserve this time of quiet, peace and quiet because it was a crazy busy week. When something, some new noise, a little, quiet, scrape of a noise. On the roof. I think it is on the roof. Ah, then it begins. Well for me anyway. The wondering. And the wandering of my mind.
The first thing I thought was a very weird thought. I have a few cats and sometimes they get on the roof and just sit there. It’s weird right? So in my writer’s mind this is what comes into play. “Whose dead body are the cats dragging across the roof.” Then, “I wonder if they ate the eyeballs first.” Yes, you don’t want to go into my head. Ever. Then the noise stops. I take a drink of my concoction that is supposed to get me going for the day. SCRAPE. There it goes again.
When a noise occurs your options are; go and find it or ignore it. My husband got a little noise in his truck once. It nearly drove him nuts-o looking for it. It was in the cab. In the dash, or door or seat. For more than a month he would drive and when he heard this little annoyance, he would move the seat, adjust the radio, cycle the heater, move the visor. Then one day a friend, Steve and he were going to some meeting and the friend gets in the truck, they start off, the noise noises its noise. Like a shark on a surfer, the friend zeroed in, grabbed a hold of the rearview mirror and the noise stops! It was a miracle. It just needed a little tightening. We talked about how that friend could zero in on a noise like that. Not everybody has that “directional hearing” ability. But that scrape on the roof wasn’t going to be hard to find.
Do I really want to go out, start this beautiful Saturday by finding something dead on the roof? Scrape. Scrape. I imagine I am going to have to get a ladder and a hose and wash off whatever the cats had drug up there. How they got whatever it is up there would, I was sure, soon enough be answered.
I am used to finding half a mouse at the back door. In the spring when the gophers are really active, the cats will hunt and bring snacks to the back porch for midnight parties. In the mornings it is not unusual to find just the nose and mouth and gopher teeth on the back porch. It’s a rural thing that becomes a regular occurrence. Something that you watch for. You only want to step on one of those gopher faces, while barefoot, once!
It’s quiet on my roof. Soon I hear a couple of swishes, a pause and then a faint thump of something hitting the ground. Then in a rush, more than four but less than 16 little cat feet scurry across the deck. Quiet again.
Now should I zip out to investigate. Imagining finding something dead on the ground and seeing a streak of blood and guts oozing down off of the roof. Yes, again, my writer’s mind has created an entire scenario. Or, I could continue to sit at my kitchen table, letting the warmth of the morning sun sink into my back while drinking my iced coffee. Oh, hands down I…
Trina lives in Diamond Valley, north of Eureka, Nevada. She loves to hear from readers. Email her at itybytrina@yahoo.com
