“Dude, what are you laughing at?” Asked my friend Steve as my laughter slowly changed from a giggle to an outright cackle. I was in the chair nursing a PBR and baked out of my gourd. Steve and Darnell were on the couch locked into a fierce game of 2K. They were also crossfaded. There was nothing happening of comedic value.
I said it was nothing as I always do. If you hang out with me enough you’ll notice this happens from time to time. Some people are weirded out by it. Fortunately I’ve always been able to find friends who find it an endearing quirk.
The truth is that I can’t explain it. Other than to say sometimes I hear it.
For the life of me I can’t describe it. I’ve sat in my room for hours trying to say it. I’ve tried to sing it in the shower. I’ve banged shit together to try to make it. I’ve used a synth ran through an obscene string of effects pedals and dicked around in pro tools until the shrooms wore off trying to recreate it. I never get close.
I’ve been hearing it for a long time. At first it was terrifying. I’d hear it in the middle of the night and start screaming in my bed. At first, my parents chalked it up to run of the mill night terrors. They got annoyed when I’d ask “what was that?” Or “where is that coming from?” when they heard nothing and I couldn’t even describe it. They got worried when they realized I was serious.
Doctors thought it was neurological. Tests revealed nothing. There was concern I was just acting out and questions were raised about our home life. But we were happy enough. Nothing out of the ordinary and certainly no abuse. The diagnosis was eventually auditory hallucinations. And since I showed no other signs of mental illness, it was recommended that they get me on a strict sleep schedule, and see a therapist specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy.
I realized at this point even at a young age that this wasn’t going away, and I no longer felt like I was in danger, so I might as well just pretend that it was working.
The only thing that bothered me, or rather, bothers me. I don’t know what it is. Medical science has tried and failed. No textbook in any field, nor just Google for that matter, is useful when it’s impossible to spell what you’re trying to research.
I’m sure Joel Osteen would tell me Jesus will rid me of it if I send enough money. I had a guy at White Castle tell me he could stop it. I just have to give up all of my earthly possessions, go out to his totally not a commune farm, stop worrying about the guns and drink his bathwater once a day like all of his follo… I mean friends.
Honestly though I don’t care that I hear it. Like I said, I don’t feel like I’m in danger because of it, it stopped even being annoying long ago. I just can’t help but wonder about it. Is it a word? Is it a code I need to break? Is it the name of some cosmic entity who wants me to be it’s vanguard but doesn’t yet understand our plane of existence well enough to know it’s name is a sound that can’t be made here? Am I hearing it when I hear it or just thinking about the last time I heard it.
Sometimes I hear it so much that it stops having meaning. Obviously it’s never really had meaning.
The best way I can explain what I mean by that is to tell you to think about the penis game. You know, where you and your other annoying teenage friends would be at a park, or a McDonald’s and just say penis louder and louder until someone makes you stop. At a certain point penis stops meaning a sexual organ. It no longer conjures images of a big veiny dong triumphantly at full mast. It’s just noise. Sometimes it’s just noise to me.
Honestly I’d like to just think Lovecraft isn’t fiction. But I can’t simply because he at least tried to spell his shit.
Every now and then the absurdity hits me in just the right way and I can’t help but laugh. I just don’t know.
I only know two things. The first is that I’ll never know for sure. The second is that until the day I die, sometimes I’ll hear it.