Member-only story
The Sight of Sounds
A short story
It sounded like a dog whining, drawing attention to its needs that are otherwise being overlooked. However when I next heard it’s remonstrations they sounded peculiarly rhythmic and repetitive suggesting it was a device rather than an actual dog. I concluded it must be someone’s ringtone — a somewhat odd choice for an alert.
Like a baby’s cry, a dog’s whine is meant to be somewhat irritating so that the impulse is to attend to the discomfort of the baby or canine if only to restore some degree of comfort to the parent or owner. This drew me to consider that the owner of said device had 2 reasons for choosing such a tone: to discomfort themselves thus ensuring they didn’t ignore the alert and; to annoy others — more with the intention to amuse themselves than inflict misery.
While the noise appeared to emanate from the front of the coach it’s exact location was difficult to pinpoint. Ruling out the coach driver (who was unlikely to have a device with its sound on) it would have to be one of the 3 people nearer the front than I was. Inevitably that led me to consider who would choose to use such an annoying alert and what thought process they went through in deciding to add it to their library.
It being difficult to figure out whose device it was from sight and given that such an investigation would look odd I…
