Deep Hum
 
She is sealing the letter when the hum starts. The house had been silent; the heating turned off this mild November morning and only a sullen pigeon on the telegraph wire outside. The hum presses, unrelenting. It seems to be coming from underneath her, from inside the earth. She checks her own body, puts her hand to her throat though she is certain she can’t be singing. She thinks of the radio, the way it moans sometimes on standby, and switches it off at the socket. But the hum grows louder. Standing barefoot in the kitchen she feels the vinyl vibrate.
     Stamps. She pulls open the second drawer down; the familiar rumble of wood on metal now distant, drowned.  Fingers shake as she peels the stamp from its backing and pushes it down on the thick white envelope. Walking to the post box, her body skims the pavement, the hum so strong now it has lifted her into the air: the force of sound.
     At the post box she bends to slice the letter into the darkness. The hum heaves her higher. Higher, higher. The pigeon so tiny and grey, the world a deafening blur.
 



*Juliet West works as a copywriter and spend her free time writing poetry, flash fiction and short stories. Her work has been published in magazines and anthologies including the New Writer, the Sunday Times online magazine and the 2011 anthology Murmurations.