Hum

 

Hum

There was a low hum coming from somewhere in the pantry which was extremely odd since all that was in there was dry goods. For the sake of my own sanity I took everything off of the shelves. I only encountered a couple of meal moths, but nothing that would cause a hum. I put my ear to the wall, there it was. I put my ear to the floor and it seemed to be louder. Could it be coming from the basement?

I hated the basement. The floor was bare earth and there always seemed to be a drip of water from somewhere that you could never pinpoint. It was musty and drafty, sometimes you could see the cobwebs fluttering in the breeze. When the wind kicked up outside there would be spooky moaning noises down there. I only went down there on the rare occasion when the pilot light went out and there was no fire under the boiler.

This time was different, I was trying to figure out what the mysterious hum was and where it was coming from. I got to the bottom step and reached out into the darkness and found the pull chain for the light. Once illuminated the basement wasn’t so creepy. Just as I was thinking this something whizzed by my ear, and then another. I perked up my ears and I could hear the hum, or was it more of a buzz. Either way it was coming from the corner of the house where the pantry was.

There was one more light with a pull chain and then the entire basement was lit up. It was then I saw it. It was an oozing, mass of life in the corner with constant motion and something dripping from it. As I stood transfixed something whizzed by my ear again, and then I realized what I was looking at. It was not some alien creature. It was a swarm of bees on a hive and what was dripping was honey.

I went back up stairs and called my neighbor who I knew kept bees. He said he’d come right over and get them because he had a couple of empty boxes that needed new hives.

It was a matter of a few hours work for him, I was no help at all. I offered to pay him for his time but he told me that getting a new hive was well worth the time he had invested. He also told me he’d left a little something on my kitchen table.

When I went back in after seeing him off, I found two large jars of honey with a note that read, “This is as local as you can get, Enjoy.”

It’s pretty quiet around here now.

It was then I heard a low hum coming from the kitchen. I rushed in there, in all the peace and quiet I’d forgotten how loud the compressor on the refrigerator was.

FEAR

 FEAR

 

 

If Vicki hadn’t been running low on cash that month, she would have never given the bulletin board a second glance, but sometimes there was an opportunity for some quick cash as an artist model, typing term papers, who knew what all. The index card that grabbed her attention was: $50.00 for an hour of your time to take a survey for the psychology department, see Pete in room 103 of the Chambers building.

She slung her back pack on both shoulders and bicycled over to the Chambers building and found room 103. To her surprise the room was empty except for a guy behind a table with an eager expression.

“Are you Pete?” asked the girl.

“The one and only.” said Pete. “Are you here about the survey?”

“Yes”, she said. “I could really use money to get me to the end of the month; you do pay in cash don’t you?”

“No problem”, said Pete waving a 50 in the air. Then he grabbed up a folder and led her to another room.

“Here is the survey, take your time, read all of the directions and make sure all of the information is correct.”

“What is this for?”,she asked.

“Some PhD candidate is going to write up all the data collected from the surveys and use it in his dissertation.

With that said Pete left the room. Vicki began to look over the survey and the room that she was in. At least they had given her a comfortable chair, not those usual institutional aluminum or molded plastic things. Other than the chair and the table, the room was bare, about ten by twelve with a mix of light and dark gray well worn linoleum tiles on the floor, bluish gray concrete walls and a water stained drop ceiling with a florescent fixture that buzzed occasionally, there was also the faint odor of pine, bleach and mustiness.

The wall across from where she sat had a large mirror on it that she could only assume was a window on the other side and that she was being observed. Over the mirror was a large wall clock. To the left in the corner was the only door in or out. She took all of this in as Pete ushered her in to fill out the form. It was one of those bubble forms that you fill in with a number 2 pencil. So she had at her disposal a comfy chair that was too heavy to lift, a table that was bolted to the floor, a couple of sheets of paper and a number 2 pencil. All in all the number 2 pencil was the best bet for a weapon.

Wait a minute, what was she thinking, she had volunteered to take this survey for the psych department, plus they were paying her fifty dollars for a completed survey. They said it would take about an hour, but looking it over, it was only two pages, more like fifteen minutes.

She might as well get this survey filled out and be done with it. The sooner she finished, the sooner she got her $50.00 and got out of here. This room was giving her the creeps.

The instructions were short and to the point: Fill in each bubble completely for each answer, check as many as apply, there is a penalty for incorrect answers.

What do they mean there is a penalty for wrong answers. How the hell would they know if I gave them wrong answers. This was somebody’s idea of a joke, let’s see if we can rattle the students who come in to do the survey. Well it wasn’t going to work.

Question 1: What time is it?

She looked up at the clock, it was 1:15 P.M. She dutifully filled in the appropriate bubbles.

Question 2: What are you most afraid of?

There was a long list of choices here, so Vicki began to read over the choices

1. darkness

2. noise

3. spiders

4. blood

5. confined spaces

6. suffocation

7. pain

8. black cats

9. fire

10. failure

11. bats

12. clowns

13. bicycles

14. insanity

15. dentists

16. injections

17. nudity

18. punishment

19. insanity

20. snakes

21. birds

22. the number 13

23. rape

As she began to fill in the bubbles, the overhead light began to buzz and flicker in earnest. and then with a small pop, a hiss and the smell of ozone it died entirely.

It was pitch dark in the room, but she pulled out her cell phone , turned on the flash light and soldiered on . Then from her island of light she heard something in the room, some noise in the corner. Vicki shone her flashlight around the room, there was nothing there.

She went back to the bubble sheet, and as she did a large wolf spider fell on the desk right beside her paper. Vicki let out an involuntary yelp of surprise and then flicked the spider int the floor with her pencil.

With her mind firmly fixed on the fifty dollars she went back to work. Vicki heard a plop and then noticed a small red spatter on her test form. So that’s why the table was bolted to the floor, so they could bombard you with spiders and fake blood. She wondered what was next.

She heard a noise again, but this time she didn’t know where it was coming from, it was a scraping noise like a concrete block being dragged across the floor. Once again she shone her light around, there was nothing there, except the room seemed to be shrinking. The walls were getting closer. She had never been claustrophobic, but she was having a hard time breathing none the less.

Vicki looked down the list again. It was then it occurred to her that she was experiencing the list of fears in the order they were on the page. This was not what she signed up for and she was not hanging around to see how the last fear played out. She was here for a survey not to be somebody’s test subject. She shone her light up at the clock. It was 1:29. She’d only been there for fourteen minutes but that was enough. 

She got up and went to the door. She put her hand on the knob and turned, to her surprise it was open. Just then the lights came on and a voice came over a speaker.

It said, “If you leave now, you forfeit the fifty dollars.”

Vicki looked over at the mirrored wall and flipped it the bird then she said, “Fuck you and your fifty dollars.”

She opened the door and let out a scream. Pete was standing there with a serene look on his face.

Pete said, “You lasted longer than any of the others. Here is your fifty dollars.”

Vicki snatched the fifty out of Pete’s hand and then said, “The next fear on the list was pain.”

She stabbed him in the shoulder with the number 2 pencil and left.

The Story of the Stone

 The Story of the Stone

The Story of the Stone

My father was a Go enthusiast. He taught me the game when I was about ten years old. I guess my ten year old mind grasped the concept and the rules, but not all of the nuances. In other words I never won and so soon lost interest.

Whenever he played, and that was a lot, he would put a black stone off beside the board. He said it was his lucky piece. When I was thirteen I asked him about his lucky piece that looked a lot like a Go piece. He said he would tell me the whole story when I was older. I shrugged and forgot about, that was until today.

Today I am much older, probably the age my father was when he told me he’d tell me the whole story. I was clearing out my father’s house since he passed away last spring. In an old jewelry box I found the stone. I picked it up and turned it around and wondered once again what the story was, thinking I’d never know now. In the bottom of the box was an envelope with Dad’s handwriting on it. It just said, to my son.

I opened the envelope and inside were just a couple of sheets of paper written in my father’s meticulous handwriting. It was dated at the top Sept. 1, 1973

Dear Dan,

If you are reading this I can only assume I am no longer with you. First let me tell you I love you because I may not have said that enough while I was alive. Second, I promised to tell you the story of my lucky piece when you were older. Well here it is.

During WWII I was the navigator on a B-24 and my best friend Rick was the bombadeer. We’d gone through basic training together and been assigned to the same squadron. It was our time during basic I taught him how to play Go. Once we were shipped abroad we had a lot of down time between missions. So we’d play Go and he got good. I still won most of the time, but he’d beat me often enough to keep it interesting.

We were headed back from a bombing run when when had engine failure and had to ditch in the Sea of Japan. The plane broke up on contact, but Rick and I somehow made it to a life raft. We were picked up three days later by the Japanese and taken back to an internment camp. We were both officers and we were put in different barracks. We’d have about an hour outside together and Our minds were turning to mush. Rick said he wished we could play some Go. It was then the idea hit me, if we used the starter grid of 9x9 we could remember the moves and I looked down and saw a stone that looked like a Go piece. It was black and smooth and I picked it up. This will keep track of whose turn it is. Rick usually took white and went first. We had some very intense imaginary games of go, especially when one of us remembered something differently that the other. We were in there together for nine months and neither of us was in good shape by then. One day I was looking for him in the exercise yard to hand him the stone and tell him my move but he never showed up. I never saw him again. We were liberated about a week later, if he could have just held out. Anyway, I was sent to a hospital on Manila and was there for ten weeks before they discharged me and sent me home.

So I kept the stone to remind me of Rick, and that there is nothing that can’t be endured. I hope you understand why I didn’t tell you when you first asked. Thirteen year old boys tend to romanticize war and I didn’t want to have to tell you a bunch of war stories. Mostly I wanted to forget the war but remember Rick.

It’s yours now along with everything else. Do with it what you will, but it might be something to keep around to remember your old man by.

It was just signed Dad

I stood there for a moment with the letter in one hand and the stone in the palm of the other, when the stone flipped over. I looked around, it was just me in the room. I said, “OK Dad” and stuck the stone in my pocket.