The Soundless Chimes

It all starts when a fat man comes in and the ground rumbles.

First, let me tell you a secret. I have a mighty ear. With it, I can hear all sorts of noises. I can hear every little rusty hinge from the store’s door. Tweaking. Creaking. Painfully slow. I can hear my boss’s snoring from the backroom—it sounds like a beaten dog, dying. I hear every minor noise—no matter how subtle, I can always pinpoint the source.

But not this time.

It is a hiss. Like a whistle but sharper. It comes from the fat man, but he is not the source—it is something inside of him.

The first time the man comes in, the ground rumbles. He waddles his way in, and he moves randomly around the antique store. I watch him like a hawk from behind the counter. I don’t like this guy, but I don’t like most people, so I shrug. Then, I hear it. So low and so equally sharp. It’s a slow-burning noise that breaks my eardrums. One stare is enough to know that he is not the source of this wretched, hellish sound.

So, where is it coming from?

The second time the man comes in, the hiss sharpens. And the third time, it grows even stronger. Then, I realize something: it feels as if it is beckoning me, like a human voice whistling, humming, begging for my attention.

I get drunk that night, thinking I may be on drugs or something. Or maybe it is my period—sometimes, I hear too much when I have it.

But the man keeps coming, and the thing keeps hissing. It bothers me no end.

One day, I ask him,

“Do you have a phone in there?” I point to his pockets.

The man squints at me. We have never spoken before.

“No.”

“A radio?”

It could be… I mean, this chubby guy comes every week to buy garbage from this antique shop: Alexa devices, discontinued iPhones, so why not a radio?

But he shakes his head, pays for his new junk toy and flees.

I decide I definitely don’t like this guy. I don’t bother to tell my boss, because he wouldn’t care—and may just think I’m nuts.

I spend long nights in my bedroom—a shithole buried in a deep basement—getting drunk and thinking. I can still smell the mustiness that oozes from this guy.

The hiss stays with me every night. Surrounding me, asking me for something… but what?

When the man shows up again, he walks to the cashier to pay for a walkie-talkie. Then, calmly, he takes something out of his pocket. I study it for a second. I have only seen it in videos or holograms; not even this store full of junk has something like this.

“Is that a notebook?” I ask. It is very tiny and black.

He nods and then opens it.

And with that simple movement, a lurid shriek is released. I gasp as I feel my head explode. The man doesn’t even budge, he’s scribbling something on it. I cannot see what.

But the sound increases as it starts to take shape into a smooth voice.

“Take me,” it cries. “Take me, and you shall have everything you have always wanted.”

That night, I get drunk again as I look at my tiny windchime. It is from my mother. She was a nobody. A drunkard, like me. When she died, this was the only thing she left behind, along with the bruises on my body, and the noises from her belt dwelling inside my head.

It is bronze, rusty and tiny. It has never moved, and I have never listened to it.

When I got it, I hung it from the ceiling of my basement, and I stared at it in silence.

I wonder how it sounds.

When I heard that creepy notebook talking, the first thing I thought was that I must have been drugged. But then, a second thought stung me like a bug: I pictured those big buildings with huge balconies. Only rich people could afford balconies. Only rich people could feel the wind scratching their puffy, fat faces.

Everything I have always wanted? Money. Lots of it. Pretty basic, huh? Yeah, you may think that—you may also think I'm insane, but let’s leave that aside.

Hence, I imagine myself on one of those big balconies. I get out in the night. Sit in a chair. Open a beer can. Feel the wind grazing me. Hear the wind howling. And swing with the sweet noise of my windchime. Ding, dong, ding, dong.

I close my eyes and smile. Then, I doze off.

The next day, I don’t plan that much. My chubby friend usually comes at night when the boss has left and the sirens start wailing. I go to the backroom and take out an old bat. People don’t use this thing anymore. Now you just see it in videos. My mom had one, though smaller. I like it because it is bigger than my mom’s. I grab it and take it to the counter. Then, I duck and wait.

As I wait, I feel my fingers fidgeting. The store is quieter than normal.

Then I hear it: squeeeeak. The hinges. Then the footsteps. Tog, tog, tog. Then the man coughs. It’s him. I’m sure. I can sense his stinky scent coming closer to the counter. And closer. And closer.

I stretch out my arm under the counter, and I switch off the lights.

A vast darkness swallows us both.

The man runs. I leap up. I cannot see him, but I can hear every one of his limbs. As he gets closer to the exit, I get right behind his huge back. He turns and tries to grab me. I dodge his edgy hands. He’s blind. I can hear him moving. Then I hit his belly really hard. He falls and sobs like a baby. I stand next to him. And I hear it: the hissing. Take me, take me, take me, it says.

I snatch it from his pocket, but he clutches my wrist and squeezes it hard.

I cry out, and I look at his eyes. They flame with rage and become black. A vast blackness that devours me. I shriek, kick him, drop to the floor, and crawl backwards.

“What th—”

I grab my bat from the floor and hit him in the face. And again. And again.

Until the blood spills and his shadow freezes.

I wince.

Then I flee.

The only things I take with me are the notebook and my windchime.

I move from neighbor to neighbor. Like a fleeting shadow hiding among blinking neon lights. Then I rent another cheap room buried in a deep basement.

The little notebook is blank. And silent.

That night, I dream of a face with two black eyes that asks me, “What do you want? What do you desire?” I answer, “Money, money, lots of it!”

I wake up soaked in sweat, and I hear it again: it’s so slow and soft that I barely notice. The notebook lies on the floor. I move closer, cautiously, like a sneaky rat. Then I open it with throbbing fingers. It is no longer blank. On its first page, there is a very small scribble:

Buy bitcoins, it says. I grab my phone, log into a cryptocurrency website and use everything that I have to buy bitcoins. The next day, the bitcoin’s price rises, and the day after that, it rises even more. My $100 becomes $200 and then $500.

The next time it hisses again, the scribble reads, Sell bitcoins. And I do it. Then it says to invest in this market. And I do it. Buy Ethereums. And I do it.

Every night, it wakes me up with new instructions. I become its slave. I do everything it tells me. And the digits in my account rise and rise and rise. In almost a week, I reach the $20,000 mark. I’m exalted. Stunned. And for some reason, frightened.

No, there is actually a reason.

The notebook keeps hissing. Constantly. Without stopping. It takes me some time to notice it. For a moment, I think it is just in my head. But then I start to wake up at nights to open it and find nothing. I hear the hissing buried in the back of my skull, drilling it. And it doesn’t stop. Nor the next day or the next one or the next one. It keeps growing inside me.

“Stop it!” I scream, but it doesn’t stop.

In front of me, the notebook lies on the floor. Almost as if it is mocking me. I clench my teeth, grab it and run outside. I try to dump it in a big container, but my hand freezes. I cannot move it; it feels as if it’s being controlled by someone else. Or something else.

My temples throb eerily as the noise spreads like a parasite.

I give up.

The next day, I try to give the notebook away to a homeless person, but my hand freezes again. I even try to sell it, but my tongue stops obeying me, and I say I don’t want to sell it. Actually, I say that I don’t want to ever sell this wrenched thing made in hell!

It is karma. It must be. My mom met it at the end. I wished for her death so many times until it reached her. My chubby friend must be in hell, praying for my misery as well. He is smarter than me. I should have prayed for my mom’s misery instead of death. Death is too easy. Too fast. Too peaceful.

But I don’t want to die. And I don’t want to suffer, either.

The noise is so constant now that I can’t hear anything else. But deep down, in the back of my mind, I can still hear my own voice. And this time, I meticulously plan how to get rid of this thing.

My first guess is that it must choose its next slave in order to let me go. Now it makes sense why my chubby friend came to the store so many times. Maybe he was trying to get rid of it as well.

I choose my victim carefully. It must be someone desperate. Money is a good trigger. There are so many desperate people in this stinky neighborhood that it seems an easy task. But I also must find someone weaker than me. I don’t want to end up like my old pal.

It is a puny boy. He sells cigarettes and sometimes something else.

I find him in an alley, three blocks from my new building. I pay him a visit every day. Make a sign with my hand to buy one of his cigarettes. He tries to talk to me sometimes, but I cannot hear him; the hiss is stronger than his voice. The third night, I dare to show him, very casually, my cute notebook. I don’t think my plan is working that much, because he doesn’t seem to give a shit about me.

But when I turn, I halt.

It first feels like a sting; then, the pain spreads throughout my veins. I gasp heavily, and I fall over. Someone snatches something from my pocket. I can feel my body drenched in a puddle. A red puddle.

Then, I hear it… the hissing dispelling, and, at the very end, a sound made in heaven.

Up there in a building, I see windchimes, bigger than mine, moving with the grace of the night wind.

And it sounds perfect, because I stop hearing my mom’s belt.

I’m still sad, though.

I never got a balcony.