What It Sounds Like Inside Her Head
With her birthday party in full swing beneath her, nobody notices Anna climbing the stairs to the very top of the house, where she shuts the door gently behind herself so as to muffle as much as possible the sound of shouting children and adults drinking excessively and faking niceties. She is in the midst of turning twelve, but has no interest in the games or the cake or the dressing-up box that earlier was ceremoniously brought down from this room. She sits on the window ledge with the broken pane of glass in the top right hand corner and draws her fingers along the spider’s web cracks. She listens to her tinnitus.
In the house opposite is the man who watches her. He is in the middle of a dry dinner party conversation when he looks up to see her sitting there and excuses himself. He steps outside and lights a cigarette. He holds the cigarette to his mouth and then changes his mind.
The front door is open and in the garden her parents drink champagne and a boy called Rupert plays inappropriately with the dog. He lets himself into the house, unnoticed, makes his way up the same stairs that Anna had climbed lightly just minutes before, softly pushes open the door letting in a slight avalanche of noise, and stands watching her.
“Tell me what it sounds like inside your head.”
“Sometimes waves crashing. A fridge whining in the next room. The sound of air being forced underneath a train as it brakes into a station. A thin man whistling through his teeth.”
He covers his ears. Yes, he nods, realising how loud the world can be. Yes, I understand.
