Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, and my bedroom is too hot and suffocating, I crawl behind my curtains, and sit in the windowsill with the window cracked open. Night air fills the lungs so much more satisfyingly than daytime air, and there’s something about looking out of the window at the dark street, knowing that you might be the only person awake to witness this particular moment in space and time, that gives me a sense of calmness and purpose. After all, otherwise I’m just an insomniac who’s sat in her windowsill at 1:38 in the morning.
There are many things you can do in an windowsill, hidden behind the curtains, not hiding from the outside world, but the inside one, where the responsible thing to do is lie in bed, trying to fall asleep, so you can be up early and have enough energy for the day. You can read, scroll, binge-watch. You can remain as long as you can stay comfortable. I fit quite nicely in my windowsill. My head just skims the top, and if I point my toes, I can slouch and comfortably push my toes against the wall to hold me up and stop me from sliding. And with the window open, there’s a sense of freedom. That being in that windowsill is a choice of your own, and no one else in the entire world can tell you that you can’t sit in your windowsill, with the window open, in the middle of the night.
And to begin with, I didn’t notice it. I am alone in being awake, on a quiet street that only the occasional car will drive alone, headlights briefly making their way into my eyeline, before passing on their way. There’s something about background noise, that you don’t really notice it until you start paying attention. The sound of a car engine catches my attention, the sound of an owl hoot, but the rustling of the wind through the leaves of the plants outside my window are practically silent, even though I could hear them if I tried to listen. It doesn’t sound like it makes sense, but it does. I didn’t start paying attention to the sound, until I heard a very human ‘whoo’. And suddenly, a whole new layer to the outside on this particular night joined the world.
The soft thumping of bass and drums, and an electronic melody over the top. The kind of music you hear in a film, softly seeping through the walls of the nearby house, when a character who really does not want to go to a party sits in the car outside, trying to build up the courage to walk up the drive. The thing with this new sound, in the night that feels like my world, and my world alone, is that I don’t know what to make of it. Sometimes, I hear the chatter of people walking past my house, and sometimes, it’s scarily loud and close. But there’s a motion sensor light that lights up near my window if anyone gets too close, and I have a dog who is very good at waking up if an unexpected human gets near the house.
And while the sound of the music is slightly muted, I can’t tell if it’s coming from a house, or a bad speaker. It sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of my driveway, around the corner where I can’t see from my window, but there’s no lights anywhere. As I listen to the music, and start to realise that, while I’ve never heard the song before, I quite like it, I begin to wonder if the music is really there. It could just be in my head. As far as I’m aware, everyone on the street is asleep, and I’m the only person awake to witness this moment in space and time. How could I find out? It’s not like I could ask someone if they heard that music last night if everyone was asleep.
It’s tempting to pull a coat on over my pyjamas, and go to investigate, but I have an overactive imagination, and I fear too much for my life to have the courage to climb out my window at night to check out mysterious music. So I simply sit and listen. And imagine. Has my opposite neighbour forgotten her window is open, and not realised quite how loud her music is turned up? Or maybe someone is sat at the end of my drive, leaning against the wall and listening to music without realising their earphones are not plugged in properly. Maybe a group of teenagers are walking down the road with a speaker. It’s difficult to tell where the music is coming from, with it echoing softly down the street. Or, again, is it simply as made up as those scenarios, my brain trying to play me a lullaby to tempt me back into bed and allow me to drift to sleep.
Either way, the longer I listen to the music, the more eerie and ghost like it becomes. What if the player of the music is not even alive? What if I’ve peeked through the veil and I’m glimpsing the world of the dead. I can find no proof that anyone else is awake. I see no lights, no torch beams. I don’t hear footsteps, or a sniff or a cough. Other than the initial ‘whoo’, all proof of human presence is gone. Maybe it’s ghost music, or maybe I’m sleep deprived and my imagination is in overdrive.
Eventually, I close my window, and climb back through my curtains. The strange thing is, I can generally still hear things happening outside regardless of whether my window is open or closed. Yes, it’s usually a lot clearer with the window open, but you know what I mean. Well, when I close the window, I listen hard for the music again, but it’s gone. Disappeared. And something scares me about opening my window again, to see if I can actually still hear it. Superstition, maybe. Perhaps just fear itself. But as I lay in bed, still as awake as ever, I can hear the soft thudding of bass and drums in my ears, but instead of it accompanying a melody, and creating a symphony of notes, it’s my heartbeat, and the sound of blood pumping around my body.
And done!
Is this based on a true story? Yes. I wrote it in the middle of the night. Did I hear ghost music tonight? Potentially. It’s really quite nice music, though, so I’m not complaining.
Anyway, that’s all for now…
Bye!
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