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off and stared at my kitchen cupboards. I was out of chips. I was also out of booze. I am not a drunk, despite what you might think. T he other night ’ s drinking session was a capricious incident , an attempt to find a muse and forget recently being made redundant. And v isiting O ’ Connor ’ s just gives me something to do now and then.  But I did consider the notion that perhaps some alcohol would help me deal with the grating noise. 
    “ Welcome to the Bank of Desperation, ” I said as I dug through couch cushions looking for dimes and quarters. As I treasure-hunted, I listened to the television, which was now showing news reports concerning the strange whine that seemed to be everywhere. Nobody had yet been able to find its source. The phone companies were also reiterating, rather angrily at this point, that they had no idea where the sound was coming from. The news flashed B-roll as the story unfolded. The ent ire town was wearing earplugs.
    “ Sound specialists and geologists from several Universities are running tests, ” the reporter said, “ but have not concluded anything significant yet. We also have confirmation that the sound is being reported in other cities, both domestic and international. Officials are assuring people they will find its cause very soon. ”
    Captions scrolled across the bottom of the screen as the man talked . He too, was wearing earplugs. I noticed they used the word ORAL when they meant AURAL. Idiots.
    As I walked to the store the sound level jumped up emphatically .  It made the backs of my eyeballs twitch in pain.
    The store was suddenly full of people racing about in a panic. Like birds at a feeder, they fought one another for the remaining stock of bread and milk. I laughed at the notion that such items would serve any purpose at the end of the day. Everywhere I turned, people were holding their ears and asking each other what the noise could be. Babies were crying, and the store was cacophonous with their collective wails. I grabbed two bottles of Jim Beam and paid for them in the checkout line. Beyond me, a young mother in her early twenties was yelling at her child. “ Oh please, Chelsea , just shut yo mouth. Damn, girl, I can ’ t deal. There ain ’ t nothing I can do about it. For real. ”
    I took my liquor and shuffled outside as quickly as I could, o nce again sad for our dwindling sense of eloquence . Was I really that much of an elitist, I wondered. Some people did not have access to an education such as I ’ d had. Should I blame them for being raised with that type of vernacular? Still, I couldn ’ t help but fear that perhaps the reason my books weren ’ t selling was because people weren ’ t rea ding anymore. My students had thought a gerund was a small animal, and took gr eater pains in learning what rhymed with the N word so they could be hip hop stars when they failed out of school. I felt like the butt of a joke, like the subject of dramatic irony. Everyone around me knew our precious written language was dying out, evolving into senseless code, and they embraced it; I still believed I could utilize its dy ing breath to secure my future. What a joke.
    On the way back home, eyes squinted and fingers in my ears , I passed by a park. Some children ran in a circle and threw a rubber ball at one another while an older woman in a long blue coat watched them intently. A young boy threw the ball at a young girl and hit her in the face. The girl fell down crying, and the woman rushed over and picked her up. She grabbed the boy, and made several wild gestures at him. The boy responded in kind, and I realized that he was deaf, that it was a class of deaf children. I can ’ t read sig n language, but I could tell some sort of heated argument took place next among all the students. Hands maneuvered quickly, fingers dancing and wri sts twisting, conveying thoughts I could only guess at. I stared fascinated for a few minutes, ignoring the grating sound in the