New Fiction: Too Much by Julie Balloo

The smooth voice as luscious as Belgian chocolate stopped abruptly mid word. Heck! I think that’s what it was, which could have gone on to be Hector or hectoring, or hack or even hic, possibly leading her to say hiccup. But I’ll never know, because when it stopped the silence was louder. It covered the room like a wave on the sand, a picnic rug on the grass, a hermit crab hiding in its shell, the darkened sky that heralds a sudden afternoon storm.  The silence was glorious and soothing and meant to help what should have come next, hours and  hours of serenity but it didn’t last very long.

At first it was soft, a snaky hiss, this was bearable but then it progressed to a gasp, the ebbing away of a dying balloon, a creaking door on its hinge, this too was bearable.

Then the bubbles caught on the way out and percolated before reaching a crescendo that travelled from a low key to a high key and erupted into a loud clap. A whip of thunder, increasing and building, a clanging metal gate in the wind, the unstoppable drip of a neglected tap, the incessant buzzsaw of an overactive mosquito and now, yes unbearable.

On and on it went like this, a symphony of undignified sounds, Philip Glass on crack, Thelonious Monk using only kitchen utensils or garden tools, a lesser known electric synthpop group that should never leave the unfortunate band’s dad’s garage. An assault of percussion, unexpected and at once predicted.

Louder all the time, Christ any louder and the neighbours would add to the cacophony as they pounded the front door, the police would be called, the roof would collapse and fall in and crush them all to death.

But no, on it went. Dispersed with whispers and unintelligible words, almost grunts. A farmyard orchestra. At last, a kookaburra emerges, laughing and laughing and echoing until my ears are physically attempting to close, to lock out this almighty din but never ever succeeding.

People have died making these noises, loved ones have set by their beds and witnessed this ungodly death rattle that is the soundtrack of the soon to be departed.

Some have likened it to a rumbling ladder leading from life to the after- life. But there is nothing glorious about this clatter. It is hellish and cuts through the air with a thousand shards of piercing glass.

It stops, I am free, I can breathe again, I can go, I can drift.

Racket! Blare! Holy mother of hullaballoo, it is back with a vengeance.

Impossible to bear, impossible to live with, impossible to continue.

I grab my pillow and press it over his face, vibrations pulse through the fabric, punching through the plumes but I have the strength of the will of silence.

Then, it stops. It has gone, the commotion have eased, the tumult has subsided, the snoring has finally stopped, and my husband is dead.