A Little Rupture (Short story)

My new hearing aid has been a great success. Not much to look at, two discreet devices delicately balanced on each ever-twitching ear, often screeching and snared in strands of hair, but boosting my fading senses. The controls are not too challenging, not as baffling as my cellphone or Adobe Premiere Elements 10, though the hardware is fiddly, and needs applying a range of nimble handling skills which I rarely measure up to. So I was very glad that I had a follow-up appointment with the audiologist to help sort out my initial problems with this equipment; a chance to be tutored in the fine details of making the most of this advanced technology, and to lurch beyond just mere hearing to holding an edge over normally hearing people, like a Superhearing Avenger.
The Audiologist is a warm, apparently caring woman. She dressed formally, all black, with startling jewelry, as if risen above her role as transmitter of aid, but still gracious toward me with my more restrained attire. I felt very special when she gushed over comments which I made for her, as required, on the forms that came with the hearing packet. This content goes well beyond the toothpaste and floss assortment you get from the dentist, so there was much to muse upon. She told me I should be a writer.
Things moved fast. The unwieldy blobs of matter, the part that actually inserted into my ears, and which threatened to drag the whole apparatus down each time they popped out, turned out to be an experimental item, with me an early tester, and she was unhesitating in replacing them with what was normally used by people with hearing aids. I complained about the little plastic whiskers that didn’t support the tubes leading to my earholes. She looked closely, and gasped in amazement, “Your ears are backwards, I’ve never seen anything like this, and I’m an audiologist.” She made the necessary adjustment; everything fitted perfectly.
I was ready to leave at this point, edging slightly towards the front of my chair, but she sunk back in hers, the warm friendly smile increasing over her face.
“Let’s check your usage,” she said.
She took my hearing aids, inserted them into receiving hardware, and studied information appearing on a monitor before her.
“Yes,” she said after a long while, “I see you are experimenting. You rarely use the normal mode I set for you. You seem to range from minimum to maximum volume very frequently.”
I felt exposed and tried to explain.
“Sometimes I’m alone, I miss my Tinnitus, other times I meet little people with squeaky, quiet voices…”
“I understand, of course, of course, everyone makes these wild adjustments at first; soon, but believe me, soon you will settle to a narrower range, without going to such extremes. Today, for example, as you were coming down Corrales Road, you turned them down to their lowest setting.”
“Yes, there were road-works, jack-hammers pounding…”
Here I paused, feeling a little unease, and asked, “How do you know I came down Corrales Road?”
“Well, how else would you get here?”
I felt so foolish, caught suspecting that my hearing aid contained a secretly installed GPS+EEG recording device revealing my every move through every moment of each day, every thought.
“Yesterday, you hardly used them at all, but on the two occasions when you did, you had the volume turned on full blast.”
“It’s Paulie, the bird, the Cockatiel, he hates me, he screams and screams when I do the dishes, screams even more when I sweep the floor around his cage, it’s unbearable with the hearing aids.”
“Then there was a knock at the door?”
“Yes, I felt it rather than heard it, like a hunch, a premonition, a bad feeling; I didn’t have my hearing aid in at the time.”
“You felt a slight compression in the air, your remaining senses compensating for your loss of hearing.”
“Right, but I still hoped that this was a false alarm. The house was a mess, the bird was pacing angrily back and forth outside his cage with his wings held the way birds normally do, but now resembling a vexed human with arms folded behind his back. Still, I flung the door open boldly. ”
“Two strangers stood outside.”


 (Version I. This is what happened, I think)

“Yes, missionaries, two of them, clutching sweat softened black books and with glistening black jackets slung over their arms; it was a hot day. They were smiling, standing at attention, feet held closely together. A strong wind swept the landscape that day, but their discretely set hair lay intact. Both stood a distance from the door, not stepping under the cover of the porch roof, one of them glancing anxiously at the sky, his smile more and more strained each time he returned his head to a normal position, but even then his eyes still darted upwards.
I strained to listen in case they spoke, realizing at that moment that my hearing aid was still sitting on the cutting board in the kitchen.”
“Is that where you keep them?” asked the audiologist.
“No. Just then. Sometimes.  Anyway, two men, not identical, but hard to tell apart, preparing to speak.

“The real estate value of your house must be seriously affected by that empty property next door”, one of them said. Or at least I think that was what he said.
“Yes it’s been empty for a long time,” I said.
They looked puzzled.
“The true meaning of climate change can be only be appreciated when you observe the declining bird populations in this neighborhood, while the main thrust of the…”, the other seemed to say, not glancing upwards for a moment as he spoke. I stepped closer to them hoping to hear better and at the same time prevent them from making any further progress toward the door.
“The look of relations bells us hurray is the hay when confectionary heats capture of elected queue, the dust devil triangulating platforms in the sky…”
“Listen, excuse me,” I interrupted, “I don’t hear too well, let me just fetch my hearing aid.”
Rushing, I fumbled longer than usual with the little gadgets. By the time I snapped them into the on position I could hear the discreet clicking of their sleek black shoes inside the house. I rushed back toward the door hoping that my momentum might sweep them out of the house and back on to the porch, but they stood firm, even edging forward and deeper into the house. We shuffled in silence, awkwardly crowded for a short while till I gave ground and waved them, reluctantly, to the sofa.  I brushed the surface that I was inviting them to sit on, observing how clean and neat they appeared, quite unlike anyone who ever visited.
“Bird populations? You mentioned declining bird populations?” I said.
They glanced at each other not quite shrugging, but narrowing, as if each waiting for the other to speak.
“No.” the one further from me spoke. “That is interesting, though. You are missing some birds?”
“Well, yes. I notice some regulars are missing from the feeder.”
“Don’t worry. The changes that are about to happen will make all that seem less important.  We bring you the news of cosmic transmutation, pooled fulfillment of destiny…”
“Pulled?”
“Pooled and apportioned.”
“Huh?”
“You know what I mean.”
“OK. But when you say our, you mean you, you two, or do you mean me also.”
“You need to make that decision. It’s up to you.”
His companion, suddenly inspired, leaned toward me and cleared his throat.
 “There are some very awesome and portentous effects ensuing today, today is a very special day.” he said. “That is why we chose to visit you, to discuss these matters.”
“About the birds?”
“Yes, well, maybe, some birds, one or two, depends.”
As he spoke my hearing aids collected audio data of an unfamiliar commotion: a rasping flutter, a range of frequencies long forgotten now surged down my ear canals.
The bird!” I screamed, very, very loudly, and jumped to my feet. The missionaries drew back into the sofa, their eyes wide with terror, black books pressed against their chests.
“The bird! The Cockatiel! It flew out. You left the fucking door open!  Help me catch it. Come on!” I shouted all this as I ran toward the door, not even looking if they followed.
I burst out and scanned the slope on the other side of the driveway. The missionaries followed, their black jackets cleverly left resting on the sofa arms, but their black books and other arms slightly raised, faces concerned.
“Help me find it. You have to help me catch it. Do you see it?”
They moved in my direction, one making slight trotting gestures and again glancing at the sky, the other hanging back, leaning forward, shading his eyes with his book, squinting at the landscape.
“Where is it. Where is it.” My voice faded to a whining pitch. 
“See it!” hissed the one who fell behind. “On that juniper.”
“That’s a Piñon, OK, let’s go,” said the other. I was amazed to see them slam their black books to the ground, raising wafts of desert sand, at once blown away in a sharp breeze. I was even more amazed to see them sprint up the slope, clearing loose rocks, yuccas, and every kind of cactus and mini chasm on their track to the bird.
“Piñon! Juniper!” I could still hear one of them yell, as he pointed to each species on either side; so at ease were they as they stormed up the steep slope. I was scrambling a whole third of the way behind them when I noticed that, unfortunately, they showed no signs of slowing down as they approached the little tree  where Paulie was resting, exhausted after his long flight in the gusting wind. Their apparent intention was to make a final dash at the tree, perhaps leaping with their last strides. The bird panicked before they were even close, and rose high into the air. I caught up with them and we watched it flutter away from us, dropping lower and lower as he tired, and then, caught by a gust of wind, slam to the ground, out of sight, among distant rocks and bushes.
We were on top of a little mesa level with where the bird fell, but with a deep gulch dividing us from that spot. Knowing the landscape I set off on a good route, urging the missionaries to follow me, but they remained rooted, pointing into the distance.
“Look,” they both said to each other, in chorus.
I looked to where they were pointing. There was a slight cloud of dust on the foothills below us, rising and falling, moving toward us.
“Just a dust devil. Come on, let’s go! It’s miles away,” I shouted.
The dust devil was a wispy smudge of red sand rising up into the air, strengthening slightly as it moved into flat, clear areas, almost vanishing as it tangled in sparse growth. Rounding a low hill, it appeared to be travelling along the dirt road, following its bends like a vehicle. The air around us had been still for a while now; normally earthbound debris, leaves from distant trees, plastic shopping bags, and unidentified floating objects were descending at various speeds to the ground. Sand, blown high a few moments ago, was now settling on the land with a hiss.”
“That’s marvelous.” said the audiologist. “You know, you just don’t know how glad I am that I could help you with your hearing.”
“I was anxious for them to follow me, but they, not responding, turned their attention to the sky.
“That’s it,” said one. “I can see it!”
“I don’t see it…oh yes, oh God, oh my God…” whispered the other.
I stopped and searched the sky to see what they had seen, but saw nothing of significance. The dust devil, strengthened on the clear path given it by the road became erect, darkened in its core, and now advanced with menacing restraint. I felt an early tingle of foreboding and stopped in my tracks to watch the tightening funnel grow taller as it rumbled closer. By now the side gusts were catching me; I turned and shouted a warning to the missionaries.
“Watch out, watch out!...” but I am sure my words were lost in the roar of the wind. They stood where I had last seen them, but now with their arms extended toward me, exited bliss stirring their faces, welcoming me, I could tell, to fulfill my destiny, to rush forward and plunge into a cluster with them. Before I had time to make an incredulous shrug a strong whack of air knocked me of my feet and flung me across a large rock, pinning me to it. In a reflex I reached for my ears to protect my hearing aid from the wind, and realized that I was a moment too late; they were both missing.
The dust devil paused briefly when it reached me, tuned its abysmal shriek to a peak pitch, adjusted its roiling whirl into a black core, and proceeded toward the missionaries.
The wind around me dropped at once, and I peeled off the rock, dropping to the ground. Not knowing, or yet caring, what damage might have occurred to my body, I bravely rose to observe the further developments. The day was at an end, not dark yet, but the slanting light refracting through the airborne sand obscured what lay before me. The dust devil stood over where the missionaries had once stood, they no longer visible. It narrowed at its base, widening rapidly up above, clearly a funnel shape by now, a vast yawn opening up in to the sky. I needn’t have looked. I knew what was going to happen next: the base snapped shut and sprung upwards piercing the widening circle of the expanding funnel’s peak, and both vanished in a shudder of darkness. The sky winced, lit blazingly at its summit, then let its dwindling light ripple down to the horizon.
The air stilled and the darkness grew. Where the missionaries had stood the ground was bare rock, sand and small debris blown away. I didn’t want to approach closely, but from a safe distance I could see two rectangles of clothing, neatly folded: black trousers, white shirts above them, shoes, closely at attention on either side. ”
“OK, but look, I see you still have your hearing aids,” said the audiologist, “how on earth did you find them?”
“Oh, they didn’t really fall out, just got tangled in my hair. It’s a good thing I didn’t have them in when the dust devil stood close by me.”
“And the bird?”
“Well, you know, that is a real mystery. Perhaps it never flew out. The bird flapping sound I heard might have been the crinkling of the pages of one the black books the missionaries were fondling nervously. I’m just not very good yet at gathering audio information. When I returned to the house Paulie was back in his cage, not even glancing at me, but shaking his head slightly, something he normally doesn’t do.”
The audiologist turned back to her monitor.
“That knock on the door…you really didn’t hear it?”
“Oh, perhaps they didn’t even knock, it was very windy that day, I assumed all kinds of sounds were occurring.”
“You walked to the door just in case, just in case you missed someone knocking.”
“That’s true, yes.”


(Version II. More likely)

“Your eyes met a dark truck blocking out the landscape. The UPS man was already leaving; a small package was lying on the porch. You waved to each other as he launched himself down the driveway for the next delivery, the sliding door to his cab remaining open.  He wore shorts and had a great pair of legs, its blond hair shimmering over bronzed skin that smoothly stretched over firm muscle. You glanced at the package, since you were not expecting any delivery that day, and realized at once that he had made a mistake, it was intended for your neighbours, but the truck was already far down the road, its trail of dust long blown away by the wind.”
“Yes, no way I could catch him.”
“But a short walk across the road is no big problem; you decided to make the delivery yourself, and perhaps meet for the first time the two young men who shared the neat and tidy house next door.  You returned to the kitchen for your hearing aids, a spill of coffee had been approaching them dangerously all this time, and set off for your neighbour’s, slightly taken aback by the weight of the box, wondering about its content, but resolved not to enquire, and to make this a pleasant, quick, neighbourly interaction.
They both appeared at the door just as you approached, apparently leaving the house, but delighted to see you.
“The parcel! Is that for us? We almost gave up hope.”
For some reason you clung to the box even as they reached out for it, and stood smiling, as if waiting to be invited inside the house. You all shuffled in awkward silence till one of them motioned toward the house.
“Come in, it’s so hot and windy today.”
Up till now you had only seen them from a distance, as they tended their yard, or entered and emerged from their vehicles, and never heard them speak, merely waving and smiling from a distance. They wore jeans and tee-shirts, but very neat, they looked ironed. Their house was also very neat, which by now you expected. The sofa you were invited to sit on was white, spotless, and you abandoned your first reflex of brushing your butt before sitting, in case debris littered the immaculate grey rug.
There wasn’t much conversation, since they became absorbed in opening their package.
“Yes!” they exclaimed, in chorus. They held black books, gripped firmly in both hands, arms extended, trembling slightly. They turned to me.
“Thank you,” they both said, again in chorus.
You made a modest one shoulder shrug, tipping your head toward the raised one.
“Listen,” this time one of them spoke for both, “We were about to leave.”
“We’re on a mission,” added the other. “Excuse us while we change.”
You rose to leave, but they run up the stairs sending a thumping shudder through the house before you took more than half a step. As you stood you had a chance to pluck a few bits of crud off the sofa while hearing a rustle of clothing hastily coming off and then deliberately being put on. You edged toward the glass topped coffee table where the black books lay, listened carefully for the still continuing rustle of fabric from upstairs...”
“I couldn’t dream of doing that without the hearing aids, “I said.
“…and opened one at random, stooping down to study the small text:
“I know what you have done, and that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish that you were either cold or hot! But since you are lukewarm, and neither cold or hot, I intend to spit you out of my mouth!  You are wretched, pitiable, poverty stricken, blind, stupid, and deaf.”
You quickly turned to another page:
They came down the stairs as fast as they ran up, this time wearing black suits, white shirts, and sleek black shoes. You had resumed your standing position near the sofa, having brushed with your fingers the deep shag rug that bore your footprints leading to the coffee table and back. You tried to resume the conversation:
“You are on a mission?”
They scurried around the room, picked up their black books, and headed to the door.
“Yes, and we have little time.”
One of them held the door, indicating for you to exit. They followed you out and walked briskly down the driveway, passing by their little hybrid sedan, leaving you standing by the still open door. You struggled against the wind to close it and then followed them slowly. Before they disappeared round a bend in the road they took off their jackets and folded them neatly on their arms. It was a very hot day, despite the wind.
Late that afternoon the air became completely still. Sand lay in ripples, like on a beach after the tide had gone out. You were busy picking up odd pieces of debris that had gathered in yard when you noticed the two young men returning to their house, walking slowly, no black books in their hands, dragging their black jackets behind them in the dust, their heads bowed.”
“It wasn’t just the debris that blew in that was the problem,” I said. “There were things in my yard that belonged there, which had vanished.”
“I guess they were littering other people’s yards,” said the audiologist.
“A fair exchange,” I said. We both laughed.
The audiologist pushed her chair away from the monitor and faced me.
“When are you ever going to fix that rattling porch roof?”
That irritating wave of discomfort swept over me again.
“How do you know my porch roof rattles?”
“Well, you do keep rushing to the door each time the wind blows hard.”


(Version III)

The wind started early, but also ended earlier than it normally does. The ground was still hot from the previous day as the rising sun began to heat the barren surface. Hot dry air started blowing down the east slopes of the Southern Rockies into the face of warm, humid air edging northward from the Gulf of Mexico. More air, sucked from the West, feigned being notice of an advancing storm, promise of thunderstorms and perhaps some rain, even hail at worst: life for weeds and cure for rising dust. In the slanting light streaks of dry red dust glowed as they snaked up valleys, dumped slowly on rising bluffs and rose again in the following gusts. The sky was clear; there was no rain, just the wind.
Herds of tumbleweeds and plastic bags searched for rest against fences and under parked cars, roofs rattled, porch roofs more than most.
The little house at the foot of the mesa had loose panels of corrugated roofing rattling and flapping against each other all that spring. Each time the wind gusted the door would also spring open and a figure would appear on the porch, closing the door carefully behind himself. He would step forward, still in the shade of the porch, glance around the yard, peer down the driveway, linger for a while, and slowly return to the shelter of his home.
Later in the day the wind stopped suddenly, earlier than it normally does, which was a surprise. A short distance from the house hot air near the ground rose quickly though a pocket of cooler, low pressure air above it. The air around it, helpless and not ill-intentioned, drew itself into the rising column and rushed wailing into the bottom of the increasing vortex.
The dust devil, spinning clockwise till now, paused, which is unusual for dust devils, adjusted itself, screamed, began to spin anti-clockwise, and started a journey down the dirt road, rounding its bends just like a vehicle, first with menacing restraint, then gathering speed.