Something only he could hear

There are some who can hear things other people can't...

Previously he was a mild mannered young man, until the drumming started, then he took to slamming doors and looking angry all the time, and he stopped combing his hair. In retaliation against the drumming he played his violin at four in the morning, but that didn’t work, for the drumming would make a loud beat and drive him out of the house to walk the streets until a café would open.

Sitting over a tea he would doze off to a faint insistent tom, tom-tom. After several months of not sleeping regularly there came a look of darkness around his eyes, and his hands would move of their own accord at even the slightest sound. Once, a glass got knocked off a table and smashed on the hard floor. His disturbance was so great his feet walked off without him and down he went with a solid thump. He started talking to himself about then, as if someone was listening and talking back to him.

He was most adamant that the drumming emanated from the room directly above him, for he lived in a shared house with other young people. The landlord, who was a very busy man, insisted that the room above was unoccupied and had been for the past three months, because no one had answered the advertisement he had placed in the newspaper for: pleasant room in shared house near to city centre, unemployed welcome.

The young man didn’t believe the landlord. There must be someone in there. He decided to prove it. So one night he lay in wait on the landing for whoever was in the room to come out, as they must do sooner or later to eat and drink.
The other tenants already weary of his strangeness now became afraid of what he might do next, but they didn’t approach the landlord about him as yet in the vain hope he might still pull himself together.

Patience was wearing thin after days of seeing him just sitting with his back to the wall staring at the door and mumbling to himself. The other three tenants banded together one night and decided to try to persuade him to go back to his room.

Celia, who was the only girl there, with a mass of ginger hair falling down her back, argued against the other two, who wanted to forcibly pick him up and put him in his room.

“You don’t have the right to do that,” she said. “If only we could get through to him somehow.”

“I know how to get through to him,” said Mark: “A sharp sock to the jaw with this would get through to him.” He held up his fist for them both to see.

Andy, the nature lover, who constantly said he hadn’t found himself yet, was tending to agree, but Celia wouldn’t hear of it.

“How can you think of doing that to Rumi? Hasn’t he always been a friend to you? You’re always borrowing his music, and didn’t he lend you his best suit last year when you had to go to that wedding?”

Mark lowered his fist and looked at the floor, shamed by Celia.

“I can’t stand seeing him there anymore,” he complained.

“Look, all we have to do is go up to him, quietly, with a cup of tea and perhaps a plate of salad sandwiches, because he’s bound to be hungry by now, and just sit with him, try to get him to join in with us in a conversation. What do you say?” asked Celia.

“I agree,” said Andy immediately, his stomach rumbling.

“And I’ll make the sandwiches,” volunteered Mark, trying to make amends for his earlier outburst.

“Good,” said Celia jumping up. “Come on then, let’s do it.”

They trooped off to the kitchen to make sandwiches...

Rumi was snoring, propped up in a corner with his head back and mouth open as the three silently crept up to him. They arranged themselves around him. Celia sat between them for safety. Mark, being the biggest, sat closest to Rumi, it being his job to wake him up.

“Well, go on then,” whispered Celia.

“Go on what?” whispered back Mark.

“Wake him up stupid,” said Celia in her normal voice. “But gently.”

Mark looked at Rumi, at his dishevelled clothes which smelt of damp, at his wild hair. He remembered his eyes that lately would just stare at him as if he wasn’t there. Let sleeping dogs alone he thought. He looked at Rumi a little more closely. He’s smaller than me, but then madmen are supposed to have the strength of ten men. With a shiver he pulled himself together and reached out his hand to shake Rumi’s shoulder but hesitated as Rumi’s snoring stopped suddenly.

Rumi opened his eyes.

“Come to help me catch the drummer have you?” said Rumi in a slurred voice still sleepy.

“There is no drummer and it’s about time you pulled yourself together,” said Mark gruffly.

“Have some tea and a sandwich,” said Celia quickly, glaring at Mark.

“I heard him last night. The sound was like thunder and it rolled on and on. Then the cymbals, like rain, torrential rain, beating down on the rooftops of cars, thin metal roofed cars.

Then the boom of thunder again, then a clap of lightning, finally a steady beat, like tom toms, all night long,” said Rumi quietly.

“I didn’t hear anything,” said Andy as if to him-self.

“Neither did I,” said Mark angrily, thinking it all just a waste of time.

“Have a sandwich,” said Celia again, pushing the plate towards Rumi, and then burst out with: “Rumi, you’ve got to pull yourself together, this is no good. You’ve got us all worried. Why can’t you give it up? What does it matter if there’s a drummer in there? He can’t hurt you. Just forget about it and it will go away.”

“Right,” said Mark grabbing a sandwich and stuffing it all in his mouth.

“Pig,” said Celia.

“Maybe he’s got tinnitus,” said Andy.

“I can hear distant thunder like a great bird beating its wings on the drum of life. It comes from some other place I’ve never been, but superimposed over this I hear the flapping of the dark angel’s wings,” said Rumi.

“Stop it. Stop it. Stop it,” shouted Celia really worried and a little scared.

A door banged from the next house.

“I hear a banging,” said Andy.

“You’re all bloody mad,” said Mark getting up and stomping off in disgust. He slammed his bedroom door. Loud noises came from his room; then it went quiet.

“There, can you hear it?” whispered Rumi.

“Hear what?” asked Andy, yompsing a sandwich.

“I hear a tom-tom sound, from far away, and rain beating down on cymbals.”

Celia took a sandwich, bit a hole in it. Eating sounds filled the landing as each swallow from Andy was heard loudly.

The light-bulb pinged and everything went dark.

“Oh great, that’s all we need,” moaned Celia.

“Cosy,” said Andy.

Mark’s door opened and French accordion music could be heard, then it went silent again as he shut the door. Celia got up and opened the door of her own room and turned on the light. It flooded out illuminating the landing.

“There, that’s better,” said Celia sitting back down and taking a sip of her tea.

“Your tea is going cold Rumi,” said Celia trying to get a response. But Rumi had a faraway look to his eyes and didn’t answer her.

“I think I’ll go to bed now,” said Andy getting up and stretching.

“Will you be alright?” he asked Celia.

Celia had her mouth full of food and just waved him away.

“Just you and me now Rumi,” she said, swallowing the last of her sandwich.

“And the drums,” said Rumi.

“Yes, those damn drums. Oh Rumi, if only me and you could have stayed together, things would have been just fine.

Look, forget about the drums, come and talk to me in my room. I promise you everything will be alright.”

“They won’t leave me be,” said Rumi, closing his eyes.

“Damn you, and damn your drums. I’ve had enough,” said Celia crossly, getting up and stalking into her room. She banged the door closed.

On the dark landing Rumi sat alone. A tear appeared from the corner of his eye and slid down his face. From somewhere came a drumming, but only he could hear it.

Images from Pixabay

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