Soundtrack to Doom

He’s heavy-handed with the vibrato. There’s no falsetto that can match his range and tone. A banshee from the night, a meteor crashing, a siren call from the depths below so low loud it’s not audible.

People walk the street with bleeding ears. It’s the style now. Trickle drops of crimson on white linen and cotton. We’re bobbing our heads along to something we feel but can’t hear.

In the offices, the cafes, and the restaurants some discuss the voice’s origin. The nature of its being is shrouded in the same mystery of how we don’t seem to feel the damp in our ears, that we’re shouting all the time, that our voices are hoarse and dry.

At night is when it’s the worst. There is no fan, no talk show’s glowing light, no Benadryl or benzo or Ativan to quiet that feeling. So it goes all night. We wake half asleep and wonder when we’ll rest. We stare the naked day down as a threat rather than a gift. Back to bed, get some sleep.

I was told about the fields, our streets, that we used to run. What was that like?