(preface: this story was written from a story ender prompt from a book written in 1981. The ending was the last three sentences.)
The Night the Noise Stopped
The noise started one night inside her head. It was small, a buzzing. She shook it from her head, and it faded. A mere abrasion. Something scritching. Sandpaper over the film of her eardrum. She shook her head again and the noise settled down even more.
She moved about her day, handfuls of cereal for breakfast, milk straight from the carton, flip flops and sunglasses for yard work. It was Saturday. She did laundry, folded a rogue pair of his boxers into her drawer. Looked for a moment at the faded plaid print before she shut it.
The night came on top of her like a tide. She collapsed into her bed, folded over her pillow. In the silence of her bedroom, the noise started again, grew from a soft, constant buzz to a rhythmic heartbeat. The same buzzing, only a pulsing now. She stood from her bed, gazed out the window over Cedar Hill. It was still early, 12:30, and the young people of the town were milling around below her window.
As she saw them shuffle from bar to bar, car to car, person to person she touched her hands to her head, overwhelmed. The noise grew louder. She saw so many people, shell-top Adidas and decoy smiles. They moved in rhythm with the noise. She kept her hands on the sides of her head, in the silly orange light of the room and fell, sleepy, into the rhythm of the noise.
Below, none of the people were smiling. Some wore fake grins of insecurity, some wore sheepish smirks of intoxication, and some wore jealous lips cracked into darkness. Nothing genuine.
He was floating from bar to bar, car to car. He wore no smile, but felt the absence, as whole as a circle, a cue ball. He stepped from the curb, watched his foot bend in a crack in the tar. He started to cross the street, drawn by an orange light above him. As he crossed, he ran his hand along his beard, close-shaved to his jaw. It had been her idea to grow it. He was far from home, drunk and hungry, mostly alone. It had been her idea.
The noise started high above him, and he followed it to her window. She was still standing, staring down at the moving orchestra of noisemakers. She swayed slowly to the noise. It trickled down her ears, down the window. It slid down, see-sawing between bricks, louder as it moved.
The people stopped milling, or he couldn't see them anymore. Maybe some people heard the noise, but everyone stopped moving. He, magnetized by noise and orange, touched the bricks. The noise slid onto his fingers, down his hand, and at the moment of contact, he raised his eyes to her. They locked in, closed their eyes simultaneously, and the people stopped grinning and smiling and smirking and moving and the bars and cars sagged.
On a night when the moon was shining, the stars sparkling, and the sky a clear black, the noise finally stopped. Everybody in the small town of Cedar Hill sighed. It was all over at last.
