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The sound was coming from the small of my back. It was surprisingly loud. It wasn’t what I’d call a “back sound,” like creaking. It was almost like a human voice, a moan. Why would the small of my back be moaning? I’d never heard a sound like that coming out of any part of my body before. I say moan, but maybe it was a machine-like hum, or a dog’s guttural growl. I used to have chronic back pain, and I never heard sounds coming out of my back, even when I was immobile with agony. My back has been doing much better for a number of years now, knock wood, so why all of a sudden a moan, or a hum, or a growl coming out of it? I put my hand to the area, under my shirt. I wanted to see if I could feel any vibrations, or something akin to breath. Nothing, just a normal feel of hand on back. I had some paperwork to take care of, but the sound was too distracting, so I tried earplugs. That helped for a little while, but then the sound got louder, as if it had caught on that I’d started wearing earplugs. So that was how it was going to be, eh, a battle between me and the small of my back? How could I prevail?
I had an idea. I remembered I had some sealing putty that I use around the air conditioner. Maybe I could fill in the small of my back, so I couldn’t hear the noises it was making. So I took my shirt off, smooshed up a handful of putty and applied it to my back, then put the shirt back on.
I went back to my desk and tried to get back to work. But now there was another distraction, the discomfort from the crudely applied putty as I leaned back in my chair. And on top of that, a tiny sound, hardly audible, but a voice, a human voice, I was sure, a strangled whisper. I strained to make out the words.
“You bastard.”
About Peter Cherches
Called “one of the innovators of the short short story” by Publishers Weekly, Peter Cherches is also a jazz singer and lyricist. His latest book is Tracks: Memoirs from a Life with Music. He has published three volumes of short fiction with Pelekinesis, most recently Whistler’s Mother’s Son. He has been publishing flash fiction since the late 1970s, well before it had a name, and lived in Brooklyn way before it was hip.
