WE’VE BEEN TRYING TO REACH YOU
IT WASN’T LONG after my twenty-fifth birthday that I began to hear things.
This wasn’t exactly a shock, more like a relief; I’d feared losing my sanity for over a decade, and my fear had finally been vindicated.
My aunt was diagnosed with schizophrenia decades ago, but my mother definitely has it too. This made me especially worried once I started taking oestrogen, in case it was endemic to the women in our family;
in case hormones would undo my psyche.
I’m not just wildly speculating about my mother having schizophrenia, by the way. My mother believes she’s abducted by aliens every week, like clockwork.
I can still picture it vividly, that day when she sat me down on the couch and told me about the aliens beaming her up, dissecting her, and putting her back with little scratches where they’d been unable to heal all of the damage. She told me they would probably start beaming me up too, in due time.
I probably have autism ‘cause of the aliens, so says my mother. One pregnant morning, she found a scratch running across her belly. That’s proof as proof can be.
But a little spastic like me stillbirthed her dream of a perfect life.
Blissfully, in my own little world, I didn’t even find the thought of being abducted scary. Even when I wholeheartedly believed her, being abducted was just a thing that could happen, and I had made my peace.
Different story for my little sister though, whom I told before my mother thought she was ready.
She started wetting the bed, waking up screaming, crying out into the night.
I didn’t exactly help the situation when I went into her room one night clicking a flashlight on and off while wearing a Roswell Grey mask I’d bought at the school fete.
My mother thinks she’s the only sane person in the world, which is tragic, but on the bright side it causes her to say some stuff that’s so completely lacking in self-awareness you’d think she was joking. One of my absolute favourites was after she came back from a convention for alien abductees.
There I was, sitting at the breakfast counter, when her station wagon pulled up. She got out, slammed the car door, stormed into the house, and yelled, “Well that was a waste of my time, none of those people were actually abducted by aliens, they were all just nuts!”
Her spell didn’t last forever, all because I couldn’t keep a secret to save my life. I told some kids at school that my mother was abducted by aliens, for which they mocked me, and that drove me to skeptical resources on alien abductions. Didn’t take long for my mother’s status in my mind to go from “cruel and clever” to “cruel and insane.”
Then one night, she disappeared without a trace.
***
I fled an abusive relationship a few months back, absconding with a surprise moving truck and zero notice.
On the key handover day, I thought that I hadn’t done my due diligence when I inspected my new apartment, and that I had just rented a place without an internal laundry.
I laid on the living room floor and cried for hours while I watched myself in my mind’s eye, jumping from the balcony over
and over
and over again.
It turned out that one set of cupboards actually housed a small laundry, but I still came to detest the stark apartment on Figtree Road.
The place was so incredibly sterile, with such awful huge windows.
Who designs an apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows as two walls of the communal space? What kind of post-functionality panopticon fetishist society designs apartments like this?
Sorry, I’m getting sidetracked.
What I truly hated about this apartment was the buzzer. Had that slick fast-talking real estate agent demonstrated the thing to me, I would’ve walked right out of the building; probably over the balcony.
The thing sounded like a telephone bell being mimicked by a synthesiser, but with a depth to it; this haunting quality that I just couldn’t pin down.
To make matters worse, it was an actual telephone, some weird simulacrum that replicated the 1980s replication of a classical sleek red rotary handset.
I suppose it’s cheaper to run a private copper interchange than to pay for software updates to your shitty wall-connected tablet while you pray the manufacturer never goes under; if anything it’s a bit strange I don’t know anyone else with a retro-chic buzzer phone.
The problem with the phone, however, is that every time it repeats, it gets slightly slower, right at the edge of my perception.
I thought it was just my imagination, so to test it, I simply didn’t pick up the phone one day.
So it rang once.
Twice.
No detectable slowdown.
It rang a third time.
Still nothing.
I started walking over to the buzzer, my experiment having failed.
My hand reached out to answer,
but it refused to ring again.
A shiver shot down my spine.
The distance between my hand and the receiver widened, and not by my doing.
They must’ve hung up, I tried to tell myself, but before that thought could be wholly expressed, it rang again.
It was as if the room was pressurised with a dense gas, stretching the cadence and lowering the tone.
My skin prickled with sweat.
My heart kicked into high gear.
I picked up the receiver
and slammed it back down.
I was in my bed just a fortnight ago, trying my best to fall asleep–never an easy task.
I dreamt of a thread of red light in the form of a sine wave, oscillating gently.
It was soon joined by another, vibrating at a higher frequency.
The two waves overlapped and ricocheted, the gap between them getting smaller
and smaller,
until finally,
they merged.
My mind was flooded with the sight of a red rotary handset.
It chimed so loudly that I flew awake and sprinted to the phone.
But when I picked up the receiver, there was nothing.
The ringing didn’t come again until a few nights later.
Night roadworks were happening right outside my window, so in a feeble attempt to drown out the jackhammers, I was playing rain noises through my bedroom speakers.
After I turned out the lights, but long before I went to sleep, I heard a faint and distant chiming.
I quickly answered the buzzer.
The flat tone droned on and on until I slammed it back down.
This time around, I had no way to dismiss it:
I was hallucinating.
The ringing became a nighttime staple, and for a few nights I had to keep reminding myself it wasn’t there, that my mind was just hearing signals in the noise.
It took about a week for it to fade into the background droning of the city, but even then I was still clinging to the belief that maybe it was another apartment’s buzzer.
Then things escalated, only a few short days ago.
I was in a work meeting when I heard it again.
Loud and clear.
Right
behind me.
I broke into a cold sweat and was nigh flash-frozen, the air conditioner lifting the droplets from my skin, blood retreating to my organs.
I needed to use all of the strength I had just to stop myself from
looking
over my shoulder.
It came again.
I jammed a pen into my thigh to stop myself from asking if anyone could hear it.
But could they?
“Sorry,” said my manager. “Marketing is calling. I gotta take this.”
I turned around.
She stepped out of the room, denied the call, and stalked towards her arch nemesis’ desk like a wounded, vengeful wolf.
How had I not noticed her looming behind me?
I chuckled, as I usually did when I was nervous, but I couldn’t muster a sigh of relief.
“Tori, are you okay?” asked the project lead. “You look ill.”
I stared blankly at him. What was the ringing doing to me? I stood up and left the conference room without a word, beelining to the toilet and losing my lunch in an empty stall.
The sound came again,
louder now,
bouncing off the tiles,
echoing off the walls.
Can hallucinations do that?
“I’ve been expecting your call.”
Nobody was in here,
I knew that.
The bathroom door hadn’t budged.
I looked up.
The ceiling twisted,
turned,
gurgled,
warped.
It spiralled inward, flexing into a funnel black as night.
No,
blacker than night.
It stared into me, and inside of it, I could see stars.
I could see atoms.
I could see my own synapses firing.
I could see
Everything.
I knelt on the tiles and ran shaky fingers through my hair, tugging at strands with balled fists.
“It’s okay,” I told myself.
“It’s okay, you’ll be okay.
“This is just a menty b, it’s gotta be, just like what happened to mum.”
I paused and chewed my knuckle while I conjured up my own pep talk.
“You’ll live through it, and you’ll see a therapist, unlike her.
“Open parenthesis. A therapist that is unlike her. Close parenthesis.
“And you’re gonna get meds, unlike her.
“And you’ll take those meds, unlike her.
“You’ll be okay.
“Unlike her.”
I looked back up.
The vortex was gone.
The ringing stopped abruptly, a clattering noise filling the space.
Had it rung off the hook?
I calmly walked back out of the bathroom and told my manager I needed a week off.
When I arrived home, I gouged out the speaker of the thing with my multi-tool’s pliers.
I stood there a moment, triumphant, until,
of course,
it rang.
I needed to be anywhere but that apartment, so I rode my motorbike down the coast and rented a cheap motel on the outskirts of Wollongong.
I’m sitting in a cafe now, trying to collect my thoughts, trying to drown out the noise. I just got off the phone to my doctor to ask that she book me a psychiatrist appointment, but the books are backlogged for months.
I don’t think I have months.
I’ve been here maybe two hours now. My coffee is cold. I swear it’s getting louder.
“Do you want anything else?” asks the waitress.
I swivel my head to look at her, and the sound gets quieter.
I look back to my coffee, and in my right ear it gets louder.
Is this some kind of left brain, right brain bullshit?
I turn my head the other way.
It’s louder in both ears now.
Oh god.
It’s not getting louder.
It’s coming closer.
I need to keep moving.
Sprinting back to the motel parking lot, I jump on my bike and peel out with reckless abandon, straight towards the highway.
Fuck, I left my laptop behind.
I’ll get a new one.
***
I can’t hear it when I’m on my bike, the wind’s deafening roar drowns out all else.
Peace and panic mix within me. Oil and water.
I’m about to reach the turn offturnoff to the Hume Highway. I can’t go north, so I gotta go south.
I’ll go to Melbourne! I’ve got a sibling there, they’ll understand what I’m going through, surely.
Entering the slip lane, I reach up to my headset and activate its speech recognition.
“Call Ollie,” I say.
“Okay, here’s some Olly Murs,” it replies.
“Fuck.” I really regret not buying a throat mic as the song starts declaring me a troublemaker.
“Call Ollie Mal,” I try again, yelling over the wind, enunciating so hard it almost hurts.
Oh fuck,
I can hear it again!
How did it catch up to me so quickly?
A twist of the throttle and the 1200cc engine gallops with pride.
Wait.
It’s not coming from behind me.
It’s coming from inside my helmet.
It’s coming from my headset!
I hammer the button to detach the Bluetooth unit and hurl it over the next bridge.
A sigh of relief, but it’s a short-lived feeling.
I can still faintly hear it somehow.
Is it coming from me?
It’s coming from below me!
My phone, of course!
How could I have been so naive?
Phone and phone, phones. It’s so obvious.
I reach into my pants pocket with a gloved left hand and toss the phone to the road.
It’s gone,
I got away.
It’s back!
Right behind me!
I glance into the mirror and see a cop car with its sirens on.
I allow myself to be pulled over, put down my kickstand, and remove my helmet. The cop approaches me very casually.
“Son, did I just see you throw something from your bike as you swerved all over the road?”
I shrug. “Perception is subjective, you tell me.”
The cop sighs.
I pay him no mind. “Tell me, officer, do you hear the ringing?”
He cocks an eyebrow. “Alright son, I’m gonna need to see your licence. Actually, first I’m gonna need you to blow into this.” He produces an arcane gadget in a fluoro yellow case.
I look down at it, puzzled.
It shudders side to side as it rings.
I can’t be here.
I need to leave.
“Sorry officer, but I’m in a bit of a hurry.” I turn back towards my bike.
An iron grip clamps onto my shoulder and stops me dead in my tracks. “You’re not going anywhere, son.
“I don’t wanna arrest you. You seem like a nice boy, I’m sure you don’t want your parents worried about you.
“Just breathe into this, or we’re gonna have to do this the hard way.”
He holds out the gadget again.
Oh god, it’s getting louder.
I can’t take this.
I take a step back and produce my licence from my wallet, which he snatches out of my hand, placating him just enough.
When he turns back to his cruiser,
I lift my arm,
reel it back,
and bring my helmet crashing down
on the back
of his head.
He slumps.
I hope he’s unconscious,
but I’m not sure.
I pick up the gadget and throw it down the embankment.
I unholster his gun and marvel for a moment at the power of life and death condensed into irreverent black metal.
I slip it into my cargo pants.
Grabbing the cop’s legs, I drag him behind the highway patrol car.
When I let them go, he begins to stir.
“Son, you’re in a lotta trouble,” he slurs.
Without hesitation, I drop a knee into his chest.
He screams through the sternum pain.
I press harder, feeling the crack of ribs more so than hearing them.
He stops screaming.
I cradle the bottom of his head above the gravel, leaving a gap near the top.
The intimacy is fitting.
I lift the helmet high above my head.
“Stop,” he wheezes.
I slam down the helmet again,
and again,
and again,
and again.
The gravel runs crimson, blood both his and mine.
I slam down the helmet again.
I’ve managed to make it about two hundred kilometres, but the sun is setting, and the ringing recently became loud enough to be heard over the wind.
It’s in my helmet now.
Burrowing into my brain.
Infecting my thoughts.
There’s little else I can think of and even less I can do.
I clearly can’t outrun it.
***
Fuck!
It’s in front of me now,
and it’s coming
fast.
Before I can even begin to apply the brakes, a cabal of police cars scream past with their sirens blaring.
They’ll be looking for me soon, ; cop’s body cams are always on at the most inconvenient times.
I’ll exchange the highway for something a little more scenic.
Tracing the hills and hugging the corners of a winding road, I reach speeds that make even me pale.
But it’s a necessary evil.
How long has it been now?
How far have I travelled?
I have no way of knowing.
Without the road signs, I wouldn’t even know how to get to Melbourne.
I nearly fuck up a corner and my bike fishtails on the gravel.
I can’t talk right now, I’ll call you back.
There’s a light in the distance.
It’s scouring the road.
Rushing towards me.
I see a glint in my mirror.
There’s another coming from behind.
Suddenly a circle of sun envelopes me from on high, blinding me.
Squinting is only taking the edge off.
I can’t see shit.
The sky looked, and behold a steel horse:
and hirs name that sat on it was Tori,
and the Ringing followed with hir.
The air around me shimmers and twists, spiralling skyward in a maddening rainbow.
Rocks and sticks lift up from the tarmac and float into the air around me.
I look above and see an unblinking eye watching me.
It’s the aliens, they’ve finally come.
A copse of trees envelops me.
The light is interrupted.
The rocks and sticks fall to the ground.
One of them is going under the wheels.
I can’t swerve!
My back wheel slides out.
The now-sideways bike falls and slides across the asphalt, giving my kevlar reinforcements a run for their money.
My helmet smashes against the surface as the bike comes to a stop.
My vision goes black.
How long was I out?
My eyes open asymmetrically.
I can hear the ringing in the distance.
Closing in.
Fast.
The beam is trained on me. It only just filters through the fractal shadows of the leaves above.
My muscles are screaming from the impact.
I flip my bike’s kill switch and shakily lift it off me.
The light wavers—was it tracking my own light? Light attracts light.
Hahaha.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
I pull the gun from my pocket and smash my bike’s always-on headlight with its butt.
The ringing grows louder.
The ringing grows sharper.
The ringing burrows into my cochlea.
Hands grasping at the sides of the helmet, not all of them mine.
It feels like my brain is gonna pop.
Then just as quickly as it arrived, it vanishes.
The beam flits around, searching for its prey.
***
I remain motionless, but my head is spinning.
I lift my visor and puke black bile across my boots, ignoring the splash-back.
Opaque fumes rise as it eats through my trousers.
The light breaks off from the copse, looking for me back the way I came.
I throttle my bike to life, and the battered and bruised creature roars.
I’ve still got the high beam headlight if I need it, but I’ll mostly be relying on the moon overhead.
I need to keep going,
they know where I am.
Dawn is finally breaking.
It feels like it’s been years.
I’ve ridden further inland, just to make sure I don’t run into any roadblocks when I cross the border.
I’m passing through this tiny town, and I’m happy to report that I’ve been three hours ring-free.
Oh, good, a McDonalds. My stomach feels like it’s on the verge of consuming me. I haven’t eaten in more than a day—unless you count half a coffee—so I pull into the parking lot and dismount.
The automatic doors slide open for me, and I hear it immediately, the sombre haunting melody.
Her!
Over there!
That woman holding a phone.
The phone.
What does that bitch think she’s doing?
It’s ringing for me!
“Give me that,” I shout, snatching it from her meaty paws.
“What do you want from me?!” I hear myself scream into the receiver.
No answer comes.
The line goes dead.
The woman looks at me, all shell-shock and awe.
I maintain eye contact as I snap the flip phone in half.
On the TV there’s a picture of someone who looks kinda familiar.
I gotta keep moving.
No time for hash browns.
Across the border now, thankfully. But I can’t keep going.
I’m so tired.
This next town will (have to) do—will have to do—I need to rest or I’m gonna crash my bike again.
The clerk of the dingy motel I chose catches me staring at the phone on his desk and asks if I need to make a call.
“Yeah, I do.”
“You’ll have to use the guest phone. Hasn’t been used in a while.”
He reaches under the desk, pulls out a phone, blows off the dust, then slides it over to me.
It’s red,
it’s rotary,
and it’s ringing.
It connects with something inside,
in me,
in the pit of my stomach.
Beep beep boop beep boop beep.
“You’ve received a collect call.
“Will you accept the consequences?”
I slam the room’s door and fumble with the chain.
My abdomen is twisting and turning onto itself.
God,
the pain!
I can’t take it!
My legs fall from under me.
Grasping at the carpet, I drag my useless body inch by inch.
The snap of a nail bent too far,
and another,
and another.
I hoist myself up over the toilet and watch my reflection dissolve into a star field that beckons me
Beyond.
My stomach clenches and squeezes.
Nothing comes out.
But something just shifted inside of me.
I gotta force it out.
I wind up a two handed gut punch and drive it home.
My whole body recoils.
But it’s stuck.
Whatever it is, it’s stuck in my throat.
It’s solid like metal, and traveling upwards.
I try to scream for help,
just as it blocks my airway.
My lungs spasm.
I claw at my throat.
I shove a hand in my mouth,
form a fist,
and rotate it.
My jaw locks open.
I still can’t breathe.
Cartilage stretches,
cracks,
pops.
A throat distends to accommodate violation.
My guts heave again,
with nowhere to go.
It’s crowning against my uvula.
My left hand claws my jaw even wider.
Muscle snaps like piano wire.
My right tries to grab the slick body.
But it’s so slimy.
I’m losing my grip.
I can’t get a grip.
Feeling lightheaded . . .
Stay focused.
Focus focus focus.
Tell me what to do.
Please!
Answer me!
PICK UP PICK UP PICK UP.
My vision tunnels,
just as I remember what’s in my pocket.
Pliers unfolded, I thrust them into my mouth.
I’ve got it!
I grip
and I pull
with all my strength.
Hot tears roll down my cheeks.
Nearly.
NEARLY.
Just one
More
pull.
Both hands on the pliers,
I wrench out my tonsil.
White stones seep and fill my mouth.
A sick gurgling
as I suck a lungful
through the new gap.
Hurry,
before you drown.
PICK UP THE DAMN PHONE.
A pen yes a pen a pen on the nightstand there’s always a pen always a pen.
YES!
A PEN!
Hold it steady.
Steady!
Steady you fucking spastic.
Cool wet ballpoint kisses my flesh tenderly.
NOW!
POP
goes the cherry.
God I’m fucking funny.
You think so too, right?
Focus focus focus.
FOCUS!
Unscrew the cap, pull out the ink.
Deep breath(s).
In and out.
Squeeze my hand.
Pliers back in.
Got it!
ALL
TOGETHER
NOW.
The sound of disfigurement
is deafening.
No.
I can’t hear the sounds of my flesh tearing.
I cannot hear them.
Sound is the only
truth.
Stretching.
Ripping.
Screaming.
Not.
Enough.
Room.
I reposition the pliers.
I grip too hard and a molar explodes into shrapnel.
Softly, I pluck out my canines.
Gently, I rip out my incisors.
Reverently, I spit out the shards.
***
Lovingly, I am delivered unto,
and staring down the coiled cord stretching from my mouth to the red rotary handset, I wait and wait and I wait and wait for the call I’m expecting an important call any moment now it won’t be long it’s coming it’ll be here soon not long now on its way I just have to
wait.
Finally it rings.
I smile,
warm red liquid
spilling
over my lips.
I lift the receiver to my head,
and pull the trigger.