George Taskier squeezed a pillow against his ears, supplementing his QuietSure ear plugs with a half inch of down feathers.
Quiet nothing, he thought as he opened one eye, worrying that if he opened both he’d never fall back asleep, slim as that prospect was. Once the garbage trucks woke him, sleep was a long shot. The luminous Sony clock atop his night table read 4:42 a.m. To his right, Rin slept soundly, oblivious to the clangs, bangs, and crunches of this Manhattan trash pickup, the thick duvet rising and falling with her rhythmic breath.
Every night, the trash truck rolled through his neighborhood—sometimes like a battalion of bruit tanks—metal crunching metal as if flattening cars and everything else in their path.
Several years ago, after twenty-seven phone calls, eleven letters, and thirty-one emails to various city agencies, the police, and Sanitation Department, George concluded that nobody would do anything about the illegal noise—and nobody cared.
The trash truck was the most penetrating, powerful, anti-sleep sound he’d ever known. He doubted that being close to an atomic detonation would be worse, possibly even better, because an atomic blast might blow out his eardrums, transforming the world into blissfully soundless Eden.
A tempting tradeoff: deafness for a good night’s sleep.
The earplugs he wore tonight were another in a long line he’d tried: plastic, rubber, titanium, neoprene, silicone, paper, wax, hemp, bark, quartz crystal, and even platinum.
Maybe earplugs thwarted whippoorwills in rural Vermont, but in New York, they were as useless against trash trucks as a knight’s armor against a Hellfire missile.
How does Rin sleep through that noise? I want to be her.
George let out a frustrated sigh. Why hasn’t someone invented a pill that turns off your hearing for eight hours? That would be the most excellent medicine in human history, a Nobel Prize winner.
As he stewed in anger and insomnolence, the trash truck continued its
malevolent advance down Second Avenue, finally, thirty-six minutes later, reaching a place where he could no longer hear it.
It was a little past five o’clock in the morning. If he was fortunate, he’d fall back asleep.
He exchanged the QuietSure earplugs for SoundGone, a pair of sea-blue anodized titanium earplugs—“the calm, ocean blue will drift into your mind,” read the company’s slogan—pulled the duvet up, kissed his wife on the back of her neck, and counted sheep.
The chirp of a car door’s lock activating stopped George’s count at eleven sheep.
Fuck!
Another thirty minutes and eight-hundred-twenty-four sheep later, a dog’s shrill yapping reset his count again to zero.
It was now 6:34 a.m. He was still too tired to haul himself out of bed, though he knew that further sleep was an unattainable goal, as the city was now alive with all manner of sound, including the incessant banter between two morning show hosts on a television blaring through an open window across the street.
“Why don’t you move to Vermont”? Thomas asked. He was an oncologist at New York Hospital Center, where George worked as a cardiac surgeon. “I’m sure your skills are transferable anywhere in the country, maybe even the world. Surely, you can find a quieter place than New York City, given that any place would be quieter.”
He shoveled a forkful of lasagna into his mouth while George balanced a pastrami sandwich in his left hand and a coffee cup in his right. George had suggested they go across the street to a cafe for lunch rather than eating in the hospital cafeteria because if he was going to chug coffee, it should be good coffee.
A glorious cacophony of pastrami, garlic, meat sauce, falafel, and a hundred other aromas accompanied the succulent coffee scents. The restaurant seated one hundred people; every seat was filled, and a line snaked along Amsterdam Avenue.
“Sure, I’d get a job, but I probably couldn’t be a cardiac surgeon. And what about Rin? What kind of architect position could she have in the middle of nowhere? Could you move to Vermont?” George bit a quarter of his sandwich and followed that with a swig of coffee.
“Nope, but I’m not the one with insomnia.”
“I don’t have insomnia. I’m a light sleeper, especially when it comes to noise. If a dog barks in Newark, it wakes me in Manhattan. Did you know it’s genetic?” George didn’t wait for Thomas to answer. “My 23 and Me report says I have a variant in the ADA gene, which makes me ‘not an especially deep sleeper,’ in their words, a mild way of saying my sleep sucks.”
“Why don’t you get earplugs?”
“I have them in spades. They don’t work.”
“Sleeping pills?”
George cast a side eye and then frowned. “A surgeon and sleeping pills don’t mix. Out of the question.”
“Soundproofing your apartment?”
“It’s a seventy-seven-year-old building. Sound’s going to find a way in no matter what we do.”
“Headphones?”
“I already said that earplugs don’t do the job.”
“Not earplugs, but noise-canceling headphones. They’re phenomenal at blocking sound.”
“Headphones. Thanks, but then I’d have to sleep on my back, and I’m not a back sleeper.”
“Excuse me,” said a woman in her mid-forties from the adjacent table. She scooched over while cradling a teacup from which wafts of steam drifted upward. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help but overhear about your sleep troubles.”
“Noise problems.”
“Yes, that’s what I meant.” She brushed her auburn hair from her eyes, revealing one blue and one green eye.
Heterochromia, George thought. Fewer than one in two hundred thousand people have that genetic anomaly.
The snowy owl tattooed on her left arm looked out of place with the summery yellow dress and matching sandals she wore.
“Noise is a big problem, especially in a big city, isn’t it? The world would be a better place for sleepers if it were quieter, I think. Have you considered a white noise machine? You haven’t spoken of it, so I suspect you haven’t thought about one, but a white noise machine, which at its most basic level is like having a fan or air conditioner on, will block sound that disturbs your sleep. They’re inexpensive. You must try one. I guarantee you’ll sleep better.”
She finished her tea in a single drink, said, “Trust me on this,” abruptly stood, and left the cafe.
“That was odd,” George said.
“Yes, but also, she’s possibly right. A white noise machine might block much noise, giving you the peaceful sleep you want.”
“What’s that?” Rin asked as George removed a small, circle-shaped machine from the Amazon box.
“It’s a white noise machine. It will—”
“I know what a white noise machine is. I was going to suggest you get one, but I didn’t think it was powerful enough to block all the sounds that disturb you, so I didn’t mention it. But maybe it can.” She shrugged. “It’s worth trying. I know how much you miss sleep.”
For my entire adult life.
When George woke the following day, he felt he had slept better—a little. Most nights, his ears tuned in passersby's conversations, but last night he didn’t. He still heard the trash trucks, dogs, cats in heat, car alarms, sirens, the rumble of the distant IRT beneath the sidewalk, helicopters, and doormen’s whistles as they summoned taxis in the middle of the night. But the white noise blocked voices.
That’s something.
The following day, the world seemed quieter, too. Rin spoke in hushes, doormens’ taxi whistles cut off before the high notes, bus engines growled softer, car horns squeaked instead of roared, and pedestrians spoke at a tranquil volume.
Was the white noise machine like a drug lingering in my system? Perhaps after being exposed to white noise all night, the brain manufactures its own white noise.
George made a note to ask a neurologist if that was possible.
“Hello,” the woman beside George on the Second Avenue bus said. “I remember you.”
The lady with the white noise machine suggestion.
She wore the same yellow dress, and the same thick auburn hair covered much of her face, but instead of one green and one blue eye, she had two blue eyes, though that was possibly a trick of the light that streamed through the bus’ dusty windows.
The owl tattoo was no longer an owl, but a wolf—and he was sure it had been an owl—or maybe not so sure, such was the effect of sleepiness on the mind.
“How did the white noise machine work out? Did you try it?”
“I did. To be honest, it helped some but didn’t block enough. I certainly see how it’s an effective tool against noise, but it won’t do the trick. Maybe I should turn up the volume?”
She shook her head. “Not that, no, too loud, and the white noise machine won’t just block noise but will keep you awake.” She scratched her chin. “Tell me what kind of noise wakes you.”
“Are you a noise specialist?”
“I’m somebody who hates noise, too, a lover of quiet.”
When George was done reciting the long list of noises that woke him, the woman said, “You need a brown noise machine. Brown noise is like white but masks deeper, longer wavelength sounds.”
“Brown noise?”
“Yes, different masking sounds are given different color names. Try brown noise in addition to your white noise machine.” She swiveled her neck to look at the window. “Gotta go. Don’t forget: white noise plus brown noise.”
She exited the bus at Seventy-First Street and Second Avenue. They had first met at an Amsterdam Avenue and 127th Street café, so why was she getting off the bus here? It was a strange coincidence that they’d seen each other two days in a row, but luck sometimes worked that way.
To George’s delight, the brown noise machine running alongside the white noise machine on his night table, the mix of masking frequencies, blocked more noise than the white noise machine alone, a synergism like a forest stream and wind blowing through the trees. He didn’t hear his neighbor’s door creaking open at 5:15 a.m., a daily occurrence, or the tap-tap-tap of his nemesis, the dancing schnauzer in the uncarpeted apartment above.
Progress, possibly even a miracle.
The city sounded muffled today, too, as if inches of padding separated him from the world, the lingering effects of the white and brown noises in his mind’s ear.
Everything was quieter: the hum, whirl, and especially beeps of the operating room had dialed down. Same for the hospital cafeteria—like he was dining inside an insulated cocoon. Even the celery’s snap was dim.
Why didn’t I try a white noise machine before? George shivered as he thought about his lifetime of interrupted sleep, but he felt that his misery was ending.
On his way out of the 7-Eleven down the block from the hospital, the White Noise Woman—he’d nicknamed her—was about to walk in.
“We meet again,” she said. She had two green eyes now.
It’s contact lenses, George surmised. She changes her eye color as a fashion thing.
He remembered reading a Facebook post about a tweet about a TikTok showing people who changed their eye colors on a whim, sometimes several times a day. This evening, a sweater covered her arm, so George couldn’t see her tattoo, but he bet if he looked closely, he’d realize it was the rub-on kind, also easy to change.
“How is it that we meet again?”
“How did the white and brown noise combination work out for you?”
“Actually, better than the white alone, but I still hear a lot of noise at night. New York’s noise is hard to defeat.”
“Tell me exactly what noises you still hear.”
Bright light from inside the 7-Eleven battled the street light, giving the White Noise Woman an unbalanced appearance, like she’d laid on one side but not the other on a sunny beach for too long. A semi rumbled by, but George barely perceived it, so diminished was its engine’s rumble and the timbre of the trumbling tires.
After George recited the noises that still woke him, she said, “A pink noise machine, that’s what you need. Be sure to run the pink noise machine, which produces a higher frequency than the brown or white machines in addition to those machines. That’s very important. You’re creating a sonic barrier using all those sounds. Got it?”
“Okay, thanks. I still don’t understand. How do you know all this, and how are you finding me?”
She pressed her finger to her lips.
George tilted his head, confused.
“Exactly. A hushed world is better.”
“By the way, what’s your name?” George asked, but she was already trotting away before he finished the question.
That evening, as they ate, Rin’s voice was so soft that George needed to lean far across the dining room table to hear her. He asked, “How was your day, babe?” and she answered with a wisp, as if the consonants had taken the quality of vowels, “Good, but oddly quiet,” followed by “I can barely hear you. Why are you whispering?”
He saw her again on his way out of the subway station after a six-hour coronary artery bypass graft operation. He was no longer surprised to bump into the White Noise Woman.
Her blue and green eyes were back, but George couldn’t recall which had been which during the previous encounters.
As he shifted his gaze, George thought there was a latticed, pointy ear beneath her hair, like a bird concealed in the brush.
She spoke a single word: “And?”
“The three machines block everything but the trash trucks. Nothing stops their clanging and banging. It’s torture. I’m grateful for your suggestions, but I’m resigned to being woken by the New York Sanitation Department in the middle of the night.”
“Not necessarily.”
George raised a hopeful eyebrow as commuters rushed by them on the subway stairs, like a fast river around a rock.
“Get a violet noise machine—violet noise increases in power with frequency. I believe that will block the trash truck noise and you’ll finally sleep peacefully. Remember, use the violet noise machine in addition to the white, brown, and pink noise machines.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about violet noise from the get-go? Why hold back the most important blocking sound.” George tapped his foot against the pavement. Nothing echoed back.
“This has to be done in a specific sequence and combination or it won’t work.”
“You’re certain that adding violet noise will do it?”
While she’d been right about the machines blocking other sounds, nothing had thwarted the relentless onslaught of early morning trash trucks. Maybe adding violent noise to the mix would work; maybe it wouldn’t.
George entered the night filled with fragile hope.
George woke refreshed to a wondrous world.
He felt—there was only one word for it—terrific.
Long ago, he stopped wearing a sleep tracker, so depressing were its reports, but he knew if he had worn one last night, it would have given his sleep an A plus grade.
George kissed Rin’s head.
She stirred, looked at him, smiled, and then closed her eyes again for five more minutes of sleep.
George skipped to the window, raised the blackout curtains, and glanced at the most beautiful morning light he’d ever seen, an orchestra of yellow, orange, and red streaming through New York City’s steel and glass canyons. George knew the sunshine this morning was no different than any other morning, but he was different.
He had slept through the night as if the sanitation trucks had disappeared.
The trucks are silenced!
He didn’t hear them; from this day forward, they would no longer wake him. Nothing would wake him because the woman’s formula of white-brown-pink-violet noise created a sonic barrier as impenetrable as Fort Knox.
George switched off the four sound machines on his crowded night table and turned to Rin, but a chilling thought forced him back to the window.
Something’s not right.
George lowered the blackout curtains and raised them again. They worked, of course, but that wasn’t what troubled him.
The rustling of cloth against cord—it wasn’t there.
Where are the street sounds? George pressed his ear to the window but heard nothing, not honks, sirens, barks, or anything.
He returned to bed and shook Rin’s shoulder.
She stirred, opened her eyes, smiled, and moved her lips, but no sound emerged.
George said, “I can’t hear you. I can’t hear anything.”
Rin scrunched her face before moving her lips again.
As George spoke, Rin shook her head. He couldn’t hear her, and she couldn’t hear him.
George held up a finger—the universal sign of “wait”—tapped over to Spotify on his phone and fired up his favorite playlist. Nothing.
Rin, the puzzled look on her face growing even deeper, took her phone off the night table, opened YouTube, and found a bagpiper video that was pure silence.
She rubbed her fingers together next to her ear and opened her mouth wide.
George turned on the television, which didn’t even hiss static, called his best friend, Bill, who answered the call according to the connected icon on his phone but didn’t say a word, opened the window to a mute city, dropped a shoe onto the floor which returned silence, then dropped a glass, which shattered but didn’t make a sound, and finally, he called 911, but there were only ghosts at the other end of the phone.
He flipped the TV to an all-news channel, where a pale-faced anchor cradled a white sheet of paper with shaking hands. Though her lips moved, no words exited her mouth. But the crawl beneath the reporter’s image told the terrifying tale: There is no sound anywhere. Human speech, animal noises, alarms, phones, machinery, wind—we are a world without sound. Something’s happened, and we don’t know what.
A waving arm from the apartment across the street caught George’s attention: the White Noise Woman smiling broadly.
Since when did she live in that building?
The woman then mouthed, “Thank you, George.”
George knew what.
If you enjoyed The White Noise Machine, I think you’ll also like my story, Leila’s Secret. If you’re not yet a subscriber to my short story newsletter, I’d be delighted if you subscribed. It’s free.
Creep-city, Bill! (Though millions do actually live in a non-sound world and thrive.) A world without noise doesn't seem too bad to me, considering all the racket I put up with, but maybe on alternating days or something? This intrigued me, "As he shifted his gaze, George thought there was a latticed, pointy ear beneath her hair, like a bird concealed in the brush." But you have left it a mystery...
This is fabulous storytelling, drawing you deeper and deeper ... the details are brilliant, making it so believable. Great writing, Bill