There it was. Always there.
No matter where I went, I could always hear it. The sound. Every time I stopped to listen, it was there. But never could I locate it. Rotating in place, the sound did not change. It was perpetually constant; omnipresent.
I could be out in the woods, and still hear it. I could be walking the dog, and still hear it. I could be in the kitchen, and still hear it. I could be in the streets, and still hear it. Albeit with a little difficulty.
Had it always been there? Or have I just never noticed it before? It didn’t seem to bother anyone else. Nor the dog, no less. Or was it an acoustic illusion? I wouldn’t put it past myself to think so. Me, the child who’d thought she heard marching soldiers when she put her head down to sleep.
I heard a melodic tone. Instinctively, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the metal slab. But in raising it half way, I stopped short. In that moment, a naive thought came into my mind. Was this device making the sound?
Their existence has only ever grown more prominent. Always sending and receiving data in wavelengths indiscernible to our ears. If there were enough of these devices huddled together, each of them whispering for attention, would their whispers coalesce to form one constant tone? Just a decade ago, I didn’t hear the sound, despite living in the same house as I do now. There was not as many wireless devices back then as there is now.
Or was I simply ignorant? My youthful innocence, accepting reality as the perpetual truth. Nothing had developed, nor would there be any development. I had thought, like the sound, that life was consistent. I was happy where I was, with what I had, and that there was nothing else to be had.
Or maybe I am more ignorant now than I was then. My egoistic self, thinking I’m so smart and that I could solve anything if I thought long enough. Perhaps that fallacy has led me to this conclusion. That the sound indeed came from these devices simply because it called out while I was pondering.
The more I thought about it, the more ludicrous it seemed. I had failed my physics courses, after all. The melodic tone began again. I shook my head, thinking about how silly I was. Tapping my device, I heard a familiar sound call to me.
“Where the hell are you?”