Contemporaneous: Chapters 33 – 34
33. I want to think I’m being magnanimous when it comes to Melody, but there she is, chatting gaily with Shia, them casting occasional glances in my direction, followed by the occasional giggle. This is like high school etiquette, although I never truly engaged in it, always feeling like I was on the outer of some joke. Most people wouldn’t have let it bother them. Psychos would’ve stewed and plotted carnage. I was somewhere in the middle, stewing but impotent. Can you believe he thinks he can teach me how to write good? I imagine Melody saying. Have you read his books? Shia would shoot back. Why would I bother?…
05
I lie in bed and listen to the ringing in my ears. It’s a sharp and constant frequency that feels like it’s coming from somewhere higher in the left ear than it is in the right, the two points connecting, the line a buzzsaw cutting through my head. Tinnitus. That’s the name for the condition. Only it’s a weird condition – for me, at least. A doctor at the Royal Ear and Eye Hospital examined my ears and hearing years ago, and said they were fine. He posed that I might’ve had an infection or something once, the ringing had been a symptom, and I recovered from the infection but…