Tattarrattat

The noise of a car horn has an instant effect. A short burst surprises you. Repeated bursts make you angry. The resounding sound; that long, endless, piercing, unbroken noise makes you scared. It freezes every instinct in your body. It makes you think of death. You do not even have to see the source of the noise. You just have to hear it and your heart sinks and you are petrified. My driver is head down on the steering wheel. My body guard is dead on the floor just outside the passenger door. My two sisters are screaming next to me. I am about to be another one of the kidnapped. Sitting on the back seat of the limo with my eyes shut, I don’t need to see what’s happening, I can hear it.

The ear is an underrated organ in the human body.

When lying, tied and hooded in the trunk of a car you realise the power of sound. This morning, when I set off for school I had no idea how my day would play out. The worst thing that was supposed to happen today was my science exam. Instead, travelling to school we were hit in a raid. Multiple, armed, assailants were everywhere; everything happened fast. They shot our driver and our bodyguard. They then sliced their right ears off with a razor. They made us watch. Then they put me and my two sisters in three separate cars and drove us away. So many sounds, so much chaos.

Abduction is now a worldwide problem. We have lessons on it at our rich private school. 'What to do in a kidnapping?', it is taught like road safety. I have just left, Scene 1 of the crime. Your greatest chance of escape happens then. Fight, scream, try to run away; just do anything you can. We couldn’t do anything, we just froze. I am now on my way to Scene 2 of the crime. Here the kidnappers control everything and escape will be almost impossible. I feel the road changing. It’s rough and grinding. We’re moving over gravel. We’re no longer in the city; no longer on maintained roads. I know this because I can hear it. I don’t know where my sisters are but I can perceive at least one other car. I hope we’re still together. I hope we’re all still heading in the same direction. At this stage, you should distract yourself. I try to think about my science exam.

The human ear consists of three parts; like our sisterhood.

The outer ear is my fifteen-year-old sister Aria. She is all decoration and no purpose. The outer ear in humans is that curly flap you all see. The skin you pierce and adorn with jewellery. This part of the ear is designed to catch the sound waves and funnel them to the key areas. Since we developed the ability to turn our neck and tilt our heads towards sound, it has been a largely useless decoration on the side of our heads; evolutionarily underdeveloped. That’s my sister Aria.

The car stops; blind I’m pulled out of the trunk. I stand and lean against the back of the car. I can hear Aria crying and pleading. She’s about five meters away. I feel panic in my chest. I taste bile in my throat. If we’re all together, I’ll show no fear. I can find the strength to face this, only if we are three. I turn my head. I hear a thud, an exhale of air and a man swear. She is here, my youngest sibling. I am guessing she has just kicked him somewhere delicate. Underneath my hood, I begin to smile.

The middle ear is my eleven-year-old sister Bella, the youngest. It’s the rhythm. The oscillating ear drum tapping against three of the smallest bones in the body. That’s Bella. She’s our beat. She has the energy and the mind to explore and question everything. She’s the smallest, but she is mighty. She pushes her two older sisters to live life at the edge.

At this stage you are supposed to remain calm and compliant. We’ve a housekeeper from Botswana. She’s called Ruth. She says, if you are ever in a jungle and a gorilla charges you, never run. If you run, you will die. You must face the gorilla and drop to your knees. Put your head down and offer your hands up in a praying gesture. The gorilla will know you respect him and spare you. We all laughed because there are no gorillas in London.

The inner ear is myself, fourteen-year-old Viola. The inner ear is a labyrinth of fluid and mazes; the mystery that rules hearing, balance and synergy. That’s my purpose in this sisterhood. I bring balance to us three. I hear everything and make sense of it. I ground the world for my flighty, older sister and translate it for my younger, fearless sister. I am the rock.

We are bundled up some steps and through a series of doors. I try to call out to my sisters but I’m yanked along and told to shut it. We walk up another flight of steps. These steps are metal. The corridors are concrete. The way my steps sound and echo, tell me we are in an industrial building. The space is large as I hear the sound travel. I hear birds, flapping in the distance. So the place is derelict. We stop and our hoods are pulled off. Sitting in front of us in a large, throne like chair is our monster. He’s stroking his chin and looking pleased with himself. With that swagger, he’s American.

“Welcome,” said the monster, “Your father, led me to believe you all very smart.”

We nod in unison. One guard walks up to him and hands him a small parcel wrapped in paper. He unwraps it and removes two bloody ears. He smiles then takes one ear and speaks into it.

“Hello, hello?”

He laughs at his joke then tosses the ears onto a table.

“It’s father who taught me why it is important to leave a message. He taught me about cutting off ears. People will always talk. Now, if you cut off enough ears will there be anyone around to listen?”

Bella looks at me. I gave her the tiniest shake of my head.

“Oh yes,” he continues, “The severed ear is your father’s calling card.”

Bella looks at me again.

“Your father is a drug dealer. He’s ‘the’ drug dealer.”

“He’ll pay a lot for us,” said Aria.

“I don’t want your father’s money; I want his attention.”

He continues, “You’re going to help me send him a message. I’m going to kill one of you and cut your ears off to serve as a message. I’m going to free one of you to deliver the message. I’m going to keep one of you as insurance until I get my reply.”

Aria starts to cry. Bella bites her lip and scowls.

“Right, you talkative bunch, we are going to play a game. Then I might at least get some conversation out of you. You’ve one hour to come up with the most beautiful English word you can think of. The best one goes free, the worst one…”

He screws his face up and draws his hand across his throat in a cutting motion.

“Take them away.”

I’m shut into a darkened room illuminated by a sole candle on a box. I ruminated while I toyed with the molten wax. I should be scared. I need to understand what we need to do. The police all disappeared after the first black outs. I believe our captor needs us to show him fear. Maybe, scaring teenage girls is the real game. My head’s a jumble. I don’t want to give him what he wants. I need to play the cards that are on the table. I need to play this out. I need to think, is there another way out of this first game, a way to sidestep any second or third game? Why is he making us play this ridiculous, first game? There are so many words to consider. What makes a word beautiful?

Epoch, a particular period of time.

Bombinate, to make a buzzing sound.

Petrichor, the pleasant earthy smell after the rain.

I was supine, lying down face upwards, when I had my epiphany.

The power is not in the word, but in the sound it makes. We live in a world where everyone is obsessed by meaning. We’ve lost the ability to realise how much gravitas sound can control.

After the hour was up we’re led back to our captor from our respective cells. He was sitting at the end of a long table with four of his men. We all stood at the opposite end.

“Hello, again. So my chatty friends. Are we ready to play a game?”

We were silent. We were obedient.

“This is getting painful,” pointing at Bella, “Go, wow me with a beautiful word.”

Bella steps forward and says, “Cuckoo.”

“Cuckoo! Yes, cuckoo. It is a wonderful word, it does exactly what it says on the tin, you are a clever one.”

Bella was not playing his other game and stayed silent. The gringo’s frustrations were boiling just under the skin. We were not defying him but you could tell he wanted more out of us. Pointing at Aria he says.

“Go.”

“Celadora.”

“Celadora! Celadora that is a Spanish word. You’re an idiot. You’re in last place. You’re not going home today.”

Looking at me he smiled, and looked back at my sister.

“Well you might be going home today, just not in the way you want. That is all down to the last sister.”

He pointed at me, and nodded.

“The Greeks have a word called kakaphōnía, that’s not my word, but it’s a good word.”

I start drumming my hand on the table, lightly tapping.

“It means ‘bad word’.”

I start to vary the drumming of my fingers. The gang look at me puzzled.

“My word is Tattarrattat.”

They look at each other laughing. I clench my hand into a fist. My tapping gets hard, angry and has an irregular rhythm.

“Yes, that is a brilliant word,” says the monster, “You’re the winner. Now stop that stupid tapping.”

I don’t stop. The beat changes and evolves. I slam my fist against the table even harder.

“I said stop.”

He comes towards me.

I stop.

I have relayed my message. Like all messages it will just take a moment. It needs to reach its destination. It needs to be looked at and understood. Then it takes just a moment for the meaning to bloom into realisation.

He stumbles, looking at me with big, lost eyes. Then the tinnitus hits him. A ringing in his ears following the echoing beats of my tapping drum. The room spins as a wave of vertigo washes over him. His stooges follow his lead and grab their heads. The three tiniest bones in the body, the stirrup, the hammer and the anvil, lying against the ear drum are vibrating out of control. It must sound like their heads are exploding. Soon they will tear through the drum itself. The tiny fluid sacks inside the inner ear have drained. This controls the body's equilibrium. The sea shell at the centre of everything is trumpeting like a conch. The most amazing organ is exploding from the inside out.

Yes, I knew my father was a drug dealer, but he did not know that my mother was a witch.

I pick the candle wax out of my ears. I start to laugh. The loudness of my laugh starts to physically shake me. They cannot hear me. Even seeing me is difficult. The ability to track by sight is another lost function. Sisterhoods can communicate with each other in ways not known to man. Bella and Aria pick the candle wax out of their ears and come towards me holding my hands. Real magic is contained in concepts, intent and primal memories; delivered with faith. You will not find it in spell books.

Cuckoo, a statement of madness and craziness; celador(a) is Spanish for a warder, the person who imprisons another. It is also very similar to the English phrase cellar door. A phrase declared by Tolkien as the most beautiful phrase ever constructed in English. Tattarrattat; a palindrome, a word that you can read in any direction, a word that has no beginning and has no end. It is the sound made when knocking on a door; an ugly sound. Individually they mean nothing, combined with us they have a power.

Our survival prospects are slim. It’s likely they are now going to kill us all. Take our ears, but only the useless outside part; an ironic trophy. It is also likely they will cut our throats. I have taken their real ears. I have robbed them of sound, balance and comfort. Some games are impossible to win. Every outcome results in losing. In these situations, it is important to control how you lose. I have changed the rules of the game.

I embrace death, for myself and my sisters. The question is will they? The difference is I know where we are going if fate decides we must still lose. With the ticking of the clock, the toiling of the bell, their days are numbered. It is a dog eat dog world. They will not survive for long in this, the cruellest of demesne.

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