His feet were aching. He could feel the blisters forming on the bony growths of his toes and the raw burning caused him to pause for a moment to recoup his strength. He had been walking around the block all evening ever since he spied a faint purplish glow on the horizon from his window that had lured him outdoors. The purplish-pink twilight had now morphed into a hard, bloodless chalkiness that plunged the neighborhood into a ghostly pit of urban desolation. How long had he been walking, Elwin could only guess. He felt a mist of drizzle enveloping him as he stood under the sinister glare of the new towering cobra head street lamp checking his wristwatch. Four hours at least, he estimated. He stretched his neck craning upwards to size up the unfamiliar imposing light fixture. A sudden gust of wind whisked past him, slapping a wet gingko leaf onto his forehead. He let it rest there, savoring the welcomed, invigorating coolness before flicking it away.

With a trembling hand he rubbed his throbbing temples. Walking had given him no relief from his headache, one of many that had been building up and plaguing him over the last few weeks. He was sure it was the incessant hum, that low droning rumble that started rising out of nowhere from the bowels of his flat, saturating every single room with a maddening, persistent murmur day in, day out without a moment’s respite, boring into his brain like a parasitic worm. The noise had nearly driven him into a frenzy when it had first intruded itself into his stream of awareness one quiet evening, forcing him to flee outside in despair with his pillow and blanket, to his cold musty garage in the futile hope of gaining some relief. 

Certain that it was the buzzing of radio frequencies broadcasting from the new electronic meter the gas company had insisted on installing, it had taken all his drive and energy to launch a campaign to have the lethal device removed from his premises. He was so hopeful, looking forward to returning once again to the unmolested quietude of his sacrosanct living space where only the peaceful sounds of twittering birds and the rush of occasional passing traffic would fill his ears. And then, just this morning, in a matter of a few minutes of long-awaited anticipation, his hopes had been brutally dashed. The technician had arrived to remove the offending meter, replacing it with an old-fashioned device that he was assured would no longer emit any disturbing electro-magnetic frequencies. 

"Hear that?" the technician had told him near the crawl space of his basement. Yes, Elwin strained to listen, it did seem a bit more quiet. "That is the sound of silence,’" the technician had added encouragingly, cocking his ear towards the new meter dangling from its wall bracket like an overstuffed green knapsack.

As soon as he had packed up his case and left, Elwin had gratefully shut the front door behind him and returned to his living room with great expectations and a sense of long-awaited relief. And then, in an instant, his heart sank in desperation. He hearkened his ear and focused. The hum, although faint, was still there, reverberating like a stalled car engine, or at times, like a soft cascade of water on corrugated tin. He felt his pulse skip a beat as the familiar stress began to engulf him. The knifepoint of sound increased, poking into his tired brain like an electric cattle prod. It was now the elephant in the room and there was no way to ignore it. He sensed a rising alarm come over him again and that was when he had run outdoors in a desperate attempt to find some relief. 

"Elwin," his physician had recently told him, "you are a rare breed. What you have is an unfortunate case of acoustic hyperesthesia. And at your age, young man, it can only get worse." Alright, so he was in his eighties, eighty-two to be precise. Nor did he appreciate the doctor’s patronizing condescension.

"No, I do not have hyperacusis," he had retorted. "You hear that, Doc? That is the sound of my voice rising in angry irritation. And you’re not imagining it, are you? Don’t cringe," he shouted, pushing his face up close. "Good—that’s what an unpleasant noise feels like, and dammit," he added, walking out indignantly and slamming the office door behind him, "I am hearing a damn hellish noise!"

No, this noise was not normal. It was unnatural. He was sure anyone could hear it. He wasn’t such an unusual specimen with super-sensitive hearing. It’s not as if the noise had been there all his life. It was something new in his environment, something toxic, lethal, a vile corrupting vapor oozing from a synthetic man-made landscape. An invasion of his private space. Why, even his neighbors had remarked how the usual vermin, the cockroaches, spiders, mice and centipedes had mysteriously disappeared in the last few weeks. 

A wave of panic and nausea swept over him. He had to go back inside. He couldn’t stay outdoors in the cold midnight dampness forever. The migraine was throbbing now, punching the back of his eyes like a billy club. He skulked back up the steps to his front door, and walked in with a sense of dread. Yes, there it is. There was no escaping it. The unmistakable hum, like a soft purr escalating into a monotonous drone. Wait—there is a pitch to this beast, he thought, straining to listen with focused intensity. 

Don’t panic, he repeated over and over. Don’t panic. Slow, steady, deep breaths. In, hold, and out. Hold and out. He went into the kitchen and put the kettle to boil on the gas stove. His eyes glanced at the sleeping dog in the corner of the room. "Harry!" he muttered softly. "Old boy, how are we doing, eh?" He shuffled slowly towards the Westie and rubbed him gently on his chin. "You’re an old soul, aren’t you now?" Harry opened his sad eyes lazily and perked his ears as a gesture of greeting. The old animal’s silver brows twitched with worry. "It hasn’t been easy for you, either, has it, old boy?" Elwin cooed sympathetically. "Hang in there. We’ll find a way to stop this humming."

He carried his mug of chamomile tea to the living room, settled into his wing chair and reached for his cello. Cradling the instrument between his legs, with his shaking hand he drew the bow over a low string trying to match tones with the deep rumble subtly echoing throughout the house. Not quite an A-sharp, not exactly a B, but somewhere in between. His bow was vibrating with the underlying pitch, matching tone for tone the mystifying sound that had formed the backdrop of intrusive ambient noise in his domain for so long. What vibrates at this frequency, he kept asking himself. The world around him was sleeping unperturbed while he was engulfed by his own private life-altering calamity. 

He glanced at his hands for a brief moment. The thin, transparent skin now appeared to be mottled by a few more puce-colored age spots. Stress will do that to an old man, he mused. His bow was rocking back and forth, vibrating and filling the empty forlorn room with a toxic, venomous pitch—the devil’s pitch—that began to sicken him to his stomach. That’s it. Sixty hertz. What vibrates to this deadly frequency? he asked himself in a fit of hopelessness. The whole western world, that’s what. There was a new intruder in his house. No doubt about it. "This, Harry," he mumbled out loud, "is the infernal sound of evil."

Elwin began to play feverishly, looping one phrase into the next in a desperate attempt to drown out the din. With a sense of resignation, he put his bow down, looked out the window towards the fiendish steely glow of the looming diode street lamp, shook his head, braced himself for the inevitable and waited, hoping to greet another dawn.