#FlashFriday The Sound of (Never) Silence #SparklyBadgers

Dear Tinnitus,

My constant companion: I love how you mix it up once in a while and change frequency, never content to be just an E that’s about twelve octaves above middle C, and when you added in that sub-bass, well! For a while you had me wondering what kind of lunatic learner pilot clocks up flying hours at four in the morning, but no. It was only you.

Remember the days of twenty bell lyres knocking out ‘Scotland the Brave’ in an enclosed space? Of course you don’t; that was your gestation, and you’ve been composing your own harmonies since.

Sometimes you almost drown out the birds, and on a late-spring late morning, that’s no bad thing. For this year, the days are done when the blackbird lures me from sleep with his sweet love song, which, incidentally, I only recently realised is reminiscent of Cinderella’s theme in Into The Woods. Clever chap, that Sondheim, seeing as blackbirds are not native to the USA. Perhaps he visited this fair isle and was inspired to capture the melodies of a British dawn chorus.

But I digress, for this morning, the blackbirds squawk, parent–child, child–parent, and in these days when I share my life with a cat, my only thought is oh, god, what is he terrorising now? He’s a mercifully poor hunter who, in three years, has gifted me several live butterflies, a hawk moth, half a dragonfly, a starling, a blue tit and two live toads.

The toads, he dropped outside the door…

Meow, meow! [I’m pretty sure it’s dead…it’s not? Oh—oy! Don’t let it go! I just spent ages catching that!]

The blue tit he carried through the open window, set it down on the floor and lay next to it…

Meow, meow! [BEHOLD! I, the tiny tiger, have brought home dinner for all!]

See, I always said I wanted to learn a second language. Who knew I’d become fluent in Felinese?

MEOW, MEOW, MEOW, MEOW! [Where are the people with warm beds? I am home and I need you! I’m here, I’m here, I’m here—ah, there you are.] Purrrrrrrr…

Meep, purrrrrr, meep, purrrr… [Focus, will you? I’m trying to boop you. Oh, look I can type! How do you spell tuna? Yes, now, please, then I’ll leave you alone, I promise.]

All I can say is thank goodness the dogs can’t jump up onto the table. Well, they probably could if they weren’t so ‘busy’ alerting every other dog in town to the fact that somebody somewhere just knocked on a door.

I’d imagined working from home would be productive, QUIET, stress-free, heavily caffeinated… Alas, you, my squealing-buzzing friend, thrive on caffeine, and I simply cannot permit you to add any more lines to your three-part not-even-a-harmony.

So it’s just you and me, dear Tinnitus, give or take a bird or two, the cat, dogs and I do believe that is an actual plane flying over. Or is it?