Misophonia

Janet was both shocked and delighted to find an article in her students’ textbook that outlined her particular hatred of sound. The word “misophonia” had a pleasant ring to it and the similarity to misanthrope wasn’t lost on her. She had taken the survey with the students and they were baffled by her score of 20 (severe case) compared to their score of 3-5 (no problem with sounds). They asked her to explain the sounds that made her head throb and teeth grind. She told them that the whirring of the bathroom fan caused her to shower and pee with a candle. She once had to leave a supermarket because she could hear a man who was stocking the shelves whistling. She avoided the staff room and its microwave beeps, chair scrapings, rustling of plastic packages, and the groan of the overworked photocopier. She found relief in empty classrooms where the decades old carpet absorbed all sound and the slight rattle of the old windows was barely noticeable.

As a result of her profound annoyance with sound, she often listened to podcasts. The dulcet, calm voices of Melvyn Bragg or Terry Gross blocked out the world and as a bonus, made her feel less alone. So it was because of a long discussion on Cleopatra that she didn’t hear the man running behind her, his breath raspy with the effort and a slight limp making his feet hit the pavement in a dissonant clompity clomp.

The headphones were ripped from her ears in the fall and she noticed how tinny and disturbing the sounds were when the earbuds were not firmly in place. The man was on top of her and she could feel her hipbones digging into the concrete of the sidewalk. His breathing was uneven and laboured and she could smell cigarettes and a lack of brushing.

He couldn’t pull down the lycra pants that she’d tied extra tight as a reminder of the excess weight she wanted to burn. His weight became heavier as his sick body lost its strength; his breath coming in and out like the braying of a donkey. She focused on that sound until it drowned all others out—her own breathing, the seagulls, the distant hum of the tram, and even the wind. The louder his breathing became the more repugnant it was and her disgust became rage. With a roar, she thrust, flipped, and twisted, but though he was now beneath her, he had his arm around her neck like a vice. She elbowed, kicked, stomped, aiming for his balls and trying to break his face. Usually the sound of a bone cracking in a movie would make her nauseous, but today, she could think of no other sound.

Finally, something connected and with a gasp and a whimper, his grasp loosened and she jumped to her feet. He was braying again but something wet was turning the dry rasp into a gargle.

“Shut up! Stop making that noise!”

His hands covered his face and she could see blood streaming out between his fingers.

“Ya broke me fuckin nose, ya cunt!”

Whiny and high pitched like a petulant child and all the more vexing because it sounded like he had a cold or worse was altering his voice to get at her.

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” She said, punctuating each word with a kick to his legs. She wanted to hear him yell out and whimper more, but instead he laughed. A cartoonish cackle that permeated to every nerve already raw and exposed. He lay there rolling side to side, holding his face, and laughing, occasionally choking and sputtering on the blood that must have been running down the back of his throat. He rolled over onto his stomach and began to wretch, a sound so repulsive she nearly began to vomit too. Whatever had given him the strength and desire to overpower her was beginning to fade. He lay there his cheek pressed against the asphalt, eyes closed and softly moaning as people sometimes do when in a deep sleep.

And then she saw it. Tucked in his back pocket was a small knife. She grabbed it quickly and stood over him. She could hear the blood pounding in her temples and her breath came out like it did in the last few hundred meters of a race—all sharp wheezing inhale, no breath out. She heard a voice, “You scum, loser, waster, piece of shit, dirtbag, junkie knacker! You fucking animal. I’m going to fucking kill you.”

She later remembered the dong dong dong of the tram as it left the stop. She knew that it was approximately six minutes from the time she first heard the faint siren to when it was so loud, she couldn’t tell if it was coming from outside or inside her brain. She remembers the seagulls getting louder and protesting the rising of the sun. But she couldn’t remember words, hers or those of the police.

A man getting off the tram had seen her straddling the young man’s back, knife raised and ready to strike. He called the police and ran to tackle her, making it the second time she was pushed to the ground by a stranger in the span of an hour. Seeing her running gear ripped at the knees and a large scrape on the left side of her face, he quickly assessed the situation and began a stream of “shushes” and “there theres” and “it’s gonna be all rights” that normally would have driven her mad but did have the desired calming effect.

Despite the family’s protests that she had intended to kill their son, Janet was allowed to leave after giving a statement and being checked by a physician.

And though she resumed running, she did so without headphones. The only sound she suffered on dark, dreary mornings, was a constant nearly inaudible whisper set to the rhythm of her footfalls—a three-word mantra: “I’m a killer”.