I lost my hearing in a local grocery store. Then I heard…
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I lost my hearing in a local grocery store. Then I heard something clicking.
I hate the silence; I hate it because it’s never really silent. I always hear some sort of ringing noise. Who knew growing up on a farm while using heavy machinery without proper ear protection would lead to permanent hearing damage and lead to lifelong torment of ringing in my ears? My father didn’t, and I was too young to say anything. I’ve been to multiple doctors where they all told me it was called tinnitus and that there is no cure or treatment for it. They’ve recommended that I listen to white noise when I try to fall asleep, so I’m not distracted by the loud ringing that creeps in when my apartment is quiet. I’ve tried it, but I find the noise more distracting than the actual ringing I hear. Despite hearing the ringing for the majority of my life, I still find it taxing to deal with. The only peace I hear is when it rains. The rhythmic tapping of rain droplets falling on my window or the low growl of thunder in the distance has brought longstanding comfort to my need for sleep.
I went to the nearby grocery store to do my normal grocery haul. I made my way into the store by locking my car and I reached down to grab my headphones, but I stuck my hands into my pockets and felt only my keys. I was nearly at the entrance of the store, so I decided to brave the store without my headphones. I assured myself that the ambient noises of the store would shield me from my ears.
I walked in, grabbed my basket, and proceeded in, where I heard the noises of crying children in the background, scuttling carts, and whatever pop music was playing at a low volume. I didn’t have to grab much because it was my midweek shopping expedition: Some fruit and veggies, bread, milk, and packaged meats. Quickly I made my way through the store, weaving in and out of the way of oncoming cart traffic, trying to make my shopping experience as seamless as possible without the need to stop and wade behind people. I grabbed everything I needed other than the pasta sauce, where I overheard an argument over which brand of bread a couple should buy, an intercom announcement calling for the produce section to answer a call, and the constant hum of the AC above my head.
Normally, each aisle is filled with people standing shoulder to shoulder waiting their turn in line to grab whatever knickknack they needed off the shelf, but to my surprise there was no one but myself in that aisle. It was empty.
I took this as a sign of good luck and strode toward the pasta sauce. At the top of the aisle stood a near empty shelf of pasta sauce. I stood on the balls of my feet to see if there was any more pasta sauce and to my luck, there was one more, but it was almost out of my reach. I strained my arm, but I couldn’t grab it. I must’ve been so focused on the sauce that I didn’t notice that the ever-buzzing AC became timid. I decided that I was going to jump for it. I looked around and didn’t see anyone in case this ended poorly. I took a deep breath and jumped. As quickly as I grabbed the sauce, it came loose and plummeted toward the ground, and soon the ground met the glass bottle and died a silent death.
There was no impact, no shatter, and weirdly no noise.
I stood in awe and confusion of the silent shatter on the ground that lay in front of me.
“Did that jus-” I tried to say, choking on my own words. I didn’t hear myself. I cleared my throat.
“Am I deaf?” once again, nothing.
No longer were there the sounds of wheels turning, children laughing and crying, or any indistinct chatter coming from aisles to my left or right. I finally noticed after seconds of contemplating the functionality of my ears, the flood of silence washed over my ears in an instant, I looked around to try and find something that could possibly make a noise. I grabbed a glass sauce jar and tried to grate it over the metal shelf, expecting a sound to be made, but nothing. I shuffled backwards into the shelf behind me, small bags of rice fell on the ground and their impact fell silent.
I nearly forgot about the broken jar on the floor. A wave of blood shot to my face, filling my face red with embarrassment as this would look weird to an outside observer, but I scanned around me and didn’t see anyone. I knew I needed to tell someone about my mess, so I placed my basket down in hopes of alerting some employees about my accident.
As I walked through aisle filled with sauces and other jarred goods, I neared the end of it, but I must’ve gotten turned around. What I expected to be an open space filled with meat products was met with what appeared to be a turn with a wall assorted with the same items I just passed, so I decided to turn around toward the front of the store. Once again, I expected a small section filled with gift cards and candy, but a similar turn and wall met my eyesight. I knew that this couldn’t be right, since I had just made my way through this aisle to come here. My stride turned to timid steps as I made my way to the turn.
Slowly I rounded the corner, and I couldn’t believe my eyes: The same aisle I came from, with the same broken red mess of glass.
I turned back to the original aisle and there it sat; I looked forward and there the same one was. My head whipped back and forth, as I was trying to wrap my head around whatever space time rift made itself known to me. I took a deep breath and approached the new aisle with small and silent steps. As I neared the other broken sauce jar, I couldn’t believe that this was the same as the one that I broke. I ran to check around the corner and the original sauce jar lay there, in a pile of its own essence.
There was no rational explanation that I could come up with to explain this phenomenon. Maybe a YouTube prankster kid replicated my sauce incident, but that wouldn’t explain the noiselessness. Maybe I was asleep, and I know how cliché this sounds, but I pinched myself to see if I’d wake, and sure enough, I was definitely awake.
Then I though I heard a sound, like someone clicking their tongue on the roof of their mouth, mixed with the metallic scraping of a worn-out blender. I swear I had heard this noise before, but I couldn’t exactly pinpoint where it was from, maybe from a TV show or a podcast. The click echoed, as if it were in an empty warehouse, traveling from the epicenter into what sounded like a never-ending void that bounced off the walls of the store for miles and miles. I don’t believe that it dissipated but rather continued to travel far enough away from me to hear it, because after a minute the click passed, and I heard another.
My mind raced. It sounded like it was getting louder, that meant it must’ve been getting closer… right?
“What the-” I mouthed, but nothing came out.
Whatever that thing was, I knew I didn’t want to meet it, so I turned down the aisle and bolted for the end. I reached the end of this second aisle, I turned right at the corner and stopped dead in my tracks.
Again, sitting in the middle of the aisle was the same sauce jar. I turned back and saw the other one and heard the clicking noise, now getting louder. I faced the new sauce spill and ventured forward, trying to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach. I passed over the sauce in one swift but careful step and reached another right turn and faced yet another broken sauce jar.
At this point, I was numb to it all, so I passed this sauce with a conviction that the sound was worse than the ever-repeating aisle, so I just had to ignore it.
\*Click… Click\* I heard the noise get louder and faster.
*Wouldn’t this face me towards the noise?* I guessed to myself facing another corner. I turned right.
\*Click. Click\* It was closer.
*Whatever, just keep walking.* A brisk walk turned into a quick jog. I could feel sweat beading on my forehead while my breaths kept silent. Another right.
\*Click\* It stopped.
*Run.* I thought to myself and dead sprinted throughout the aisles, passing the same spill over and over again. About the 8th or 9th turn, I must’ve lost track of my steps and stepped into the pile of sauce.
I slipped and ran into a shelf full of bagged beans and rice. I looked down to see my legs were covered in a deep scarlet. I started to panic, I couldn’t walk, it hurt too much.
Even though I couldn’t see it, I knew something was coming soon. A shadow slowly started to form on the floor around the corner. I wanted to crawl away, but my breathing was labored and heavy. My mind raced, but I couldn’t think of anything to do. The shadow grew more pronounced as that *thing* got closer.
Then, I saw it.
A humanoid shaped mass slowly rounded the corner. It looked like it was made of black and gold concentric rings that slowly oscillated around an epicenter. The rings were continuously rotating and tilting at all angles and if the rings collided, I heard them click. Sometimes, if the rings moved just right, I could see straight through its body.
Its steps were jagged with no discernable cadence. It almost looks like it was stumbling, like a wild animal that was fatally wounded.
I couldn’t look away nor could I run. I looked down at my leg and saw shards of glass glistening from the fluorescent lights above.
I needed to fight, so I grabbed a bag of beans and threw it directly at the creature's head. I missed and hit more jars of sauce. They cascaded off the shelves and silently shattered. The creature clicked loudly at the jars and shuffled towards them with its momentum.
What happened next haunted me for my dreams.
The creature contorted its body to be closer to the jars and the metallic rings started clinking and clicking more rapidly. That’s when I heard something else. Over and over and over again.
I looked over and saw a pale-purple flame formed on the jars and from it, I heard the firm impact of the bag hitting the jars followed by the shattering of the jars on the floor. It was as if the fire was replaying the final moments of the jars. The flame was rhythmically pulsing, duller and brighter with the intensity of the sounds it was playing. The creature opened some of its rings and it looked like it was twisting and siphoning the flames into its vacant shell. Soon enough, the fire went out, and the creature rose back up, looking stronger than before.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was paralyzed by fear, so I sat there, looking as the ringed creature slowly made its way closer to the initial broken sauce jar.
Once it found that first sauce jar, the ritual commenced again following the same beats as before. When it got back up this time, its staggering seemed to be gone. I’ve never been more scared in my entire life, so I threw another bag of beans at the shelves, hoping to entice the creature once again. I just wanted more time to think of a plan to get out of here.
As more pasta jars silently cascaded to the ground, the creature met them and absorbed them again.
*Do I just need to be quiet?* I thought to myself. *If I throw a bag towards the other aisle, maybe I can get away.*
I knew I needed to time this right, since I’d never been able to hold my breath for that long.
I inhaled deeply. The gaze of the creature now fixed upon me. I threw the bag across the end of the aisle toward some ground coffee cans and hoped with fiber in my being that the creature would look away from me.
I saw the bag hit the cans, but they didn’t fall. I saw the bag bounce off the cans and flop onto the ground with what I assumed to be a pathetic thud.
The creature walked towards me, with its full attention, so I started to panic. With my good legs, I kicked more bags off the shelves onto the ground, trying to distract it, but that didn’t work. I wanted to kick at the creature, but it was too far away.
I tried to throw bags at that thing, but it wasn’t deterred.
My lungs started to hurt and my eyes filled with tears. I tried to cover my mouth, so I reached up and grazed my keys in my pocket. I knew this was my last-ditch effort, so I reached into my pocket and used my final strength to throw them across the store.
The creature turned away from me and ran towards my keys. I passed out.
Eventually, I woke up, with my memory blurred to what happened, but I remember hearing the questions of the EMTs, so I cried.
I still think about that day in the store. Even though I can’t explain what happened, I’m certain it happened because I’ve never found my keys and I’ve got the scars to prove it.
Has this happened to anyone else? Or is this just me? Either way, I’m never leaving without my earbuds ever again.
#entertainment
source
I hate the silence; I hate it because it’s never really silent. I always hear some sort of ringing noise. Who knew growing up on a farm while using heavy machinery without proper ear protection would lead to permanent hearing damage and lead to lifelong torment of ringing in my ears? My father didn’t, and I was too young to say anything. I’ve been to multiple doctors where they all told me it was called tinnitus and that there is no cure or treatment for it. They’ve recommended that I listen to white noise when I try to fall asleep, so I’m not distracted by the loud ringing that creeps in when my apartment is quiet. I’ve tried it, but I find the noise more distracting than the actual ringing I hear. Despite hearing the ringing for the majority of my life, I still find it taxing to deal with. The only peace I hear is when it rains. The rhythmic tapping of rain droplets falling on my window or the low growl of thunder in the distance has brought longstanding comfort to my need for sleep.
I went to the nearby grocery store to do my normal grocery haul. I made my way into the store by locking my car and I reached down to grab my headphones, but I stuck my hands into my pockets and felt only my keys. I was nearly at the entrance of the store, so I decided to brave the store without my headphones. I assured myself that the ambient noises of the store would shield me from my ears.
I walked in, grabbed my basket, and proceeded in, where I heard the noises of crying children in the background, scuttling carts, and whatever pop music was playing at a low volume. I didn’t have to grab much because it was my midweek shopping expedition: Some fruit and veggies, bread, milk, and packaged meats. Quickly I made my way through the store, weaving in and out of the way of oncoming cart traffic, trying to make my shopping experience as seamless as possible without the need to stop and wade behind people. I grabbed everything I needed other than the pasta sauce, where I overheard an argument over which brand of bread a couple should buy, an intercom announcement calling for the produce section to answer a call, and the constant hum of the AC above my head.
Normally, each aisle is filled with people standing shoulder to shoulder waiting their turn in line to grab whatever knickknack they needed off the shelf, but to my surprise there was no one but myself in that aisle. It was empty.
I took this as a sign of good luck and strode toward the pasta sauce. At the top of the aisle stood a near empty shelf of pasta sauce. I stood on the balls of my feet to see if there was any more pasta sauce and to my luck, there was one more, but it was almost out of my reach. I strained my arm, but I couldn’t grab it. I must’ve been so focused on the sauce that I didn’t notice that the ever-buzzing AC became timid. I decided that I was going to jump for it. I looked around and didn’t see anyone in case this ended poorly. I took a deep breath and jumped. As quickly as I grabbed the sauce, it came loose and plummeted toward the ground, and soon the ground met the glass bottle and died a silent death.
There was no impact, no shatter, and weirdly no noise.
I stood in awe and confusion of the silent shatter on the ground that lay in front of me.
“Did that jus-” I tried to say, choking on my own words. I didn’t hear myself. I cleared my throat.
“Am I deaf?” once again, nothing.
No longer were there the sounds of wheels turning, children laughing and crying, or any indistinct chatter coming from aisles to my left or right. I finally noticed after seconds of contemplating the functionality of my ears, the flood of silence washed over my ears in an instant, I looked around to try and find something that could possibly make a noise. I grabbed a glass sauce jar and tried to grate it over the metal shelf, expecting a sound to be made, but nothing. I shuffled backwards into the shelf behind me, small bags of rice fell on the ground and their impact fell silent.
I nearly forgot about the broken jar on the floor. A wave of blood shot to my face, filling my face red with embarrassment as this would look weird to an outside observer, but I scanned around me and didn’t see anyone. I knew I needed to tell someone about my mess, so I placed my basket down in hopes of alerting some employees about my accident.
As I walked through aisle filled with sauces and other jarred goods, I neared the end of it, but I must’ve gotten turned around. What I expected to be an open space filled with meat products was met with what appeared to be a turn with a wall assorted with the same items I just passed, so I decided to turn around toward the front of the store. Once again, I expected a small section filled with gift cards and candy, but a similar turn and wall met my eyesight. I knew that this couldn’t be right, since I had just made my way through this aisle to come here. My stride turned to timid steps as I made my way to the turn.
Slowly I rounded the corner, and I couldn’t believe my eyes: The same aisle I came from, with the same broken red mess of glass.
I turned back to the original aisle and there it sat; I looked forward and there the same one was. My head whipped back and forth, as I was trying to wrap my head around whatever space time rift made itself known to me. I took a deep breath and approached the new aisle with small and silent steps. As I neared the other broken sauce jar, I couldn’t believe that this was the same as the one that I broke. I ran to check around the corner and the original sauce jar lay there, in a pile of its own essence.
There was no rational explanation that I could come up with to explain this phenomenon. Maybe a YouTube prankster kid replicated my sauce incident, but that wouldn’t explain the noiselessness. Maybe I was asleep, and I know how cliché this sounds, but I pinched myself to see if I’d wake, and sure enough, I was definitely awake.
Then I though I heard a sound, like someone clicking their tongue on the roof of their mouth, mixed with the metallic scraping of a worn-out blender. I swear I had heard this noise before, but I couldn’t exactly pinpoint where it was from, maybe from a TV show or a podcast. The click echoed, as if it were in an empty warehouse, traveling from the epicenter into what sounded like a never-ending void that bounced off the walls of the store for miles and miles. I don’t believe that it dissipated but rather continued to travel far enough away from me to hear it, because after a minute the click passed, and I heard another.
My mind raced. It sounded like it was getting louder, that meant it must’ve been getting closer… right?
“What the-” I mouthed, but nothing came out.
Whatever that thing was, I knew I didn’t want to meet it, so I turned down the aisle and bolted for the end. I reached the end of this second aisle, I turned right at the corner and stopped dead in my tracks.
Again, sitting in the middle of the aisle was the same sauce jar. I turned back and saw the other one and heard the clicking noise, now getting louder. I faced the new sauce spill and ventured forward, trying to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach. I passed over the sauce in one swift but careful step and reached another right turn and faced yet another broken sauce jar.
At this point, I was numb to it all, so I passed this sauce with a conviction that the sound was worse than the ever-repeating aisle, so I just had to ignore it.
\*Click… Click\* I heard the noise get louder and faster.
*Wouldn’t this face me towards the noise?* I guessed to myself facing another corner. I turned right.
\*Click. Click\* It was closer.
*Whatever, just keep walking.* A brisk walk turned into a quick jog. I could feel sweat beading on my forehead while my breaths kept silent. Another right.
\*Click\* It stopped.
*Run.* I thought to myself and dead sprinted throughout the aisles, passing the same spill over and over again. About the 8th or 9th turn, I must’ve lost track of my steps and stepped into the pile of sauce.
I slipped and ran into a shelf full of bagged beans and rice. I looked down to see my legs were covered in a deep scarlet. I started to panic, I couldn’t walk, it hurt too much.
Even though I couldn’t see it, I knew something was coming soon. A shadow slowly started to form on the floor around the corner. I wanted to crawl away, but my breathing was labored and heavy. My mind raced, but I couldn’t think of anything to do. The shadow grew more pronounced as that *thing* got closer.
Then, I saw it.
A humanoid shaped mass slowly rounded the corner. It looked like it was made of black and gold concentric rings that slowly oscillated around an epicenter. The rings were continuously rotating and tilting at all angles and if the rings collided, I heard them click. Sometimes, if the rings moved just right, I could see straight through its body.
Its steps were jagged with no discernable cadence. It almost looks like it was stumbling, like a wild animal that was fatally wounded.
I couldn’t look away nor could I run. I looked down at my leg and saw shards of glass glistening from the fluorescent lights above.
I needed to fight, so I grabbed a bag of beans and threw it directly at the creature's head. I missed and hit more jars of sauce. They cascaded off the shelves and silently shattered. The creature clicked loudly at the jars and shuffled towards them with its momentum.
What happened next haunted me for my dreams.
The creature contorted its body to be closer to the jars and the metallic rings started clinking and clicking more rapidly. That’s when I heard something else. Over and over and over again.
I looked over and saw a pale-purple flame formed on the jars and from it, I heard the firm impact of the bag hitting the jars followed by the shattering of the jars on the floor. It was as if the fire was replaying the final moments of the jars. The flame was rhythmically pulsing, duller and brighter with the intensity of the sounds it was playing. The creature opened some of its rings and it looked like it was twisting and siphoning the flames into its vacant shell. Soon enough, the fire went out, and the creature rose back up, looking stronger than before.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was paralyzed by fear, so I sat there, looking as the ringed creature slowly made its way closer to the initial broken sauce jar.
Once it found that first sauce jar, the ritual commenced again following the same beats as before. When it got back up this time, its staggering seemed to be gone. I’ve never been more scared in my entire life, so I threw another bag of beans at the shelves, hoping to entice the creature once again. I just wanted more time to think of a plan to get out of here.
As more pasta jars silently cascaded to the ground, the creature met them and absorbed them again.
*Do I just need to be quiet?* I thought to myself. *If I throw a bag towards the other aisle, maybe I can get away.*
I knew I needed to time this right, since I’d never been able to hold my breath for that long.
I inhaled deeply. The gaze of the creature now fixed upon me. I threw the bag across the end of the aisle toward some ground coffee cans and hoped with fiber in my being that the creature would look away from me.
I saw the bag hit the cans, but they didn’t fall. I saw the bag bounce off the cans and flop onto the ground with what I assumed to be a pathetic thud.
The creature walked towards me, with its full attention, so I started to panic. With my good legs, I kicked more bags off the shelves onto the ground, trying to distract it, but that didn’t work. I wanted to kick at the creature, but it was too far away.
I tried to throw bags at that thing, but it wasn’t deterred.
My lungs started to hurt and my eyes filled with tears. I tried to cover my mouth, so I reached up and grazed my keys in my pocket. I knew this was my last-ditch effort, so I reached into my pocket and used my final strength to throw them across the store.
The creature turned away from me and ran towards my keys. I passed out.
Eventually, I woke up, with my memory blurred to what happened, but I remember hearing the questions of the EMTs, so I cried.
I still think about that day in the store. Even though I can’t explain what happened, I’m certain it happened because I’ve never found my keys and I’ve got the scars to prove it.
Has this happened to anyone else? Or is this just me? Either way, I’m never leaving without my earbuds ever again.
#entertainment
source
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