“The Hum” was the basis of some novella piece I was going to write about 5-6 years ago, a future controlled by sound and oscillations. I wrote a lot of notes and had a lot of ideas but didn’t really have any time or vision to go forward with the damn thing. I did write little extracts; windows into what it could have been…
Do you know where your mind is? Looking out these windows at an orange haze that outshines the bronze cast of the sun. We see flat-faced pyramid shaped monoliths reaching up hundreds of stories high, looming above us one right after the other. A carpet of steel and cement rolled out to the north and to the south; glass to the east and west.
And this was The City. It had been here for as long as week think we could remember. It was in control of its domain. It was inclined to absorb any characteristics that desired to step out of the monochrome. At one time it was many cities but then the velocity of its growth gave it nowhere else to go except to into one another. Cities smashing into cities and then looking upward and downward to place it’s ever-growing but cold and lifeless flesh. This is where we live. This is where we know. This is where we stay. We all feel sorry to have to see it through these eyes…
He took a moment press his face up to the plexiglass, greasy from fingerprints oil and grime. A rogue formation of pod cars flew by, morphing in the shadows of the towering buildings. Hear the enveloped hum of their metal-amplified engines: vroom vroom vroom.
His name was Damien. And to acquaint you with his surroundings he was standing there on the 363rd floor of building 76HLA. He has been in this building, living there, for six years after moving from the Philadelphia quarter of the city…
