Infested

The house can be so quiet, honey. Deathly quiet. When the fans aren't going and the birds aren't chirping and I'm fed up with the TV and you're away, it gets downright spooky. The sort of silent where your ears get hungry and you start to hear little nothings, a water droplet plunk or bugs gnawing on the walls. Sort of like a clicking. Do you know what I mean? But it's so faint you have to like strain to hear it. You actually crane your neck to try to make out the sound, what it is and where it's coming from. At least I do. And after you do, you have to really consider whether what you thought you heard was any louder. You can easily talk yourself out of the sensation. As if a sound so faint isn't real but is like the background fuzziness of hearing or like the tones you sometimes hear. Or I hear at least. Has this ever happened to you? It's strange, how going to such lengths makes you more and less convinced you hear anything at all. How, on the one hand, you can't make up noises that're continuous over entire minutes but then how, on the other hand, the noise makes no sense. Not that noises can make sense of course. I mean the physical possibility of the noises themselves makes no sense. Because where could the water be coming from anyway? When it happened last, I was sitting in the living room and there aren't any pipes nearby. It hadn't rained in a few days. And what is there for a bug to gnaw on? The walls are masonry. They can't chew through brick I don't think. Why would they want to? It's just baked clay.

For all of my searching, I still think I hear some crunchy, slap-type noises sometimes. Maybe scraping is the word for it. It's real. I'm sorry to say but that's my honest conclusion, sweetie. I've had all the time in the world to think it over. I feel half-crazy for telling you about it. I can only imagine what you're thinking. What do you think? You're well read. You've had psychology in college. Or was it high school? At any rate, could some part of my brain--a different part than the one that asks questions--invent it? Can my own brain like short cut my ears and pipe in its own fabricated info? It makes my head spin just thinking about it! I think by the persistence of the noise, by its refusal to go away even when I leave the room and come back ten minutes later, that something bigger's going on. Like something outside of my little brain out in the real world, you know? Because Lord knows I want it to stop.

It's funny how memory works. Days are just trigger pulls I think. Everywhere I go my memory is spurred. I hear this sound and remember how I heard a similar sound sitting on a bench in the woods maybe gosh fifteen years ago now. Your father's better with his chronology. I swear the man has a timeline in his skull! So I was taking a breather in a park--Hurst Park off Locust Street--all by myself. I was practically panting (I had gone on this running kick to try to shed a few pounds, which, as you can see, only worked so long as I was doing it. Metabolisms slow, honey. Yours will too I'm sorry to say.) After I caught my breath I must have like let my head droop back and started to sigh or something. The weather on that particular day was splendid. It must have been spring because I clearly remember the temperature was perfect. The sort of day you don't feel on your skin unless there's a breeze. The leaves were far enough along to actually rustle whenever the wind picked up. Because I remember there was rustling and then silence and then like a soft noise. It sounded distant because it was so quiet. My first guess was that it was a squirrel but I couldn't see any squirrels around scurrying and I never heard a bird make such a noise. Birds are so finicky they wouldn't hop around so close by. It sounded more like a dog chewing on a--you know, the toys we get for Bopper?--rawhides. But there were multiple dogs because no one thing could do that much chewing is the only way I can put it. Multiple chewing things. I frightened a bit at first because I couldn't locate the sound. I definitely heard it though, distinctly but faintly. I closed my eyes and tried to map it out. What do they call it with bats? Echo-something. I like rolled my head around. I must have looked insane, I know. I have no idea how the process works, but it sort of helped. I think that's how the blind get by so well. So yes, once the blood stopped rushing through my ears, I determined the sound was coming from beneath me. But between my feet was just this asphalt trail and patches of grass, weeds, and old leaves. There maybe was a wrapper or something. But I'm just rambling.

No one was around to ask about whether or not they heard anything too. That's the natural impulse, to have yourself verified. Corroborated. But the park was usually deserted. Suburban parks are underutilized. It's tragic, really. I always say to anyone who'll listen use them because you're already paying for parks with the sales tax and real estate taxes, but I guess what do I know? The outdoors isn't everyone's cup of tea. But so I remember wanting to leave because of this unknown sound and wanting to stay for the same reason. Like, if I didn't find the source, it would haunt me. Maybe not haunt. But irk. It would have irked me to not know what was making the noise because I couldn't disprove my mind was playing tricks on me. It's true what they say about how you're afraid of what you don't know. In this case, what I didn't know could be caused by a brain on the fritz. My friend Susanne--you know Susanne--she had this ringing in her ears some years ago. Tinny-something her doctor called it. I don't know. Miners and military men usually developed it. Well, she'd never been so much as near a mine and back when she and I were young (back when we used to write on scrolls!) women couldn't enlist if they wanted to. Which just thank your lucky stars that era's behind us. She heard that darned buzzing all the time for months on end. She said it nearly drove her nuts. What if I was hallucinating? Was beeping going to be next? It was very disconcerting to say the least.

Then it hit me. The bench's texture registered in my head: wood. Of course! I put my ear nearer the back and the scratching got louder. Not continuous sound but sporadic. I needed to get to the bottom of the noise, even if it came from a nasty little thing like a termite. I've seen termites before. Grandpa had a problem with them on his farm. The damage they can do! He built his own barns, you know, with his country friends. Just imagine raising a barn! Thank goodness we don't have to churn butter because I tell you we'd just dip bread in cream if it were left to me. My point is, though, termites are dreadful. Icky segmented ant-like things. You can sort of see through them. They give me the willies. Even if it meant finding termites, I was going to risk it. That's reasonable I think. Peace of mind means a lot more when you get older as you'll discover someday in the very distant future, darling.

The face of the bench showed no signs of infestation. There was a memorial plaque and bird scat but that was it as far as interest goes. I checked the sides of the back planks. Nothing. But then I saw the shadowy rough ovals on the side of the seat planks. They burrowed in the sides! Just imagine those filthy things were chewing within an inch of my bottom! Can you imagine? I leaned in and strained to see inside the ovals, but obviously light was lacking. So, I got down to check the bench's underside. I braced myself against the seat. What a scene, I know! Looking back, I could have been certified. But so underneath on the second and third plank there were these exposed canals. The shapes were generally tubular, much too large to be termite paths. It looked like Morse code. You don't know about Morse code, do you? Do that teach that still? Probably not--it was dreadfully dull. When I traced these out, scraping along the ground, I came to a fuzzy shape in the track. My first impulse was to poke it with a finger but decided to put my ear nearer to it instead. There was the muted crunching. What a relief! It turned out to be from a carpenter bee. I only saw the one but his friends were probably hidden. Why they're called carpenter bees is a mystery to me. They don't build anything. They only chew stuff up.

So, I'm not crazy is the point. I mean, the sound can be legitimate. Not that we have a carpenter bee problem. It's just that that's what it sounds like in this empty house when your father's gone. A person can only watch so much cable is the thing. Not that it sounds better when he's around. Then it's just pin-drop silence mixed with grunts. You know how he is. So what I mean to say by all of this is come home soon so we can fill this house with laughs again. We can bake cookies. Doesn't that sound nice? Thanksgiving is right around the corner.