She thought she was hearing things. She flopped down on her hotel bed with her headphones on, book in hand. There was still some time before she had to meet her friends to go out. Her finger found the small oblong button on the side of her headphones and gently pushed it down. All sound, from the ventilation to the chatter on the streets, went mute. Or at least, almost all of it.
Muffled jazz music floated out of the right side of her headphones. Strange, she never listens to jazz. Opening her music app, she selected a new reading playlist and cracked the book open. Still, she could hear a jazz undercurrent. She switched playlists. The undercurrent continued. She paused her music and raised the volume. The jazz’s volume wouldn’t increase.
Confused, she lifted one cushioned earpiece. No jazz was playing in the room, and all that blared in the streets was rap music that cars would occasionally blast way too loud. She turned the headphones off. The typical static that filled her ears blotted out the jazz. She turned the headphones back on, wondering if it was just a fluke or if she had another app open. But none of her other music apps were on.
Turn on the headphones again. Resume reading.
She gets thirty pages in and manages to finish a chapter. But she frowns. In between the mellow harp is a voice. A man’s voice was muffled and only came out of one ear. She pauses the music and still hears the voice. She recognizes it as a radio station host giving a report on the weather or the latest sports and celebrity gossip. But she cannot fathom why it’s happening.
Rip the headphones off. Turn another page. But then groan because she cannot concentrate as well when her headphones are off. So, she begrudgingly puts them back on.
Just as she’s about to open her music app again, the jazz music comes back. It’s so strange; this hasn’t happened before. Is it just because she’s in a different region? No, it can’t be. She traveled to a completely different continent with those headphones and never got random music playing out of one ear. It must be a fluke. Or are the headphones haunted?
She pauses and rolls onto her back. Flings the headphones to a corner of the bed.
The other night, they walked past what is widely considered the most haunted mansion in the city. Of course, she looked up the owner’s history and was mortified at the crimes that occurred there. But they didn’t walk directly past. She didn’t even take a photo because it was too dark and the camera wouldn’t have caught it. But…no, hauntings aren’t real.
With shaking hands, she reached for her headphones again. One of her roommates was on the phone. Her hand stops. It is late, and her eyes are very tired. It was a fluke, probably. She pulls her satin eye mask down. Another early day tomorrow…
A long day of presentations, presenting, and exploring left her exhausted. She already took a shower and did her night routine. Her book practically calls to her. She puts her headphones on, but remembers what happened the previous night. She is confident, however, that it can’t happen again. It won’t happen again. But she was in a different state.
She turns on her music and flips to her bookmarked page. Nothing out of the ordinary so far. Several minutes pass by. Peering over her pages she sees her roommates walk back and forth as they got ready for bed. A part of her wants to chat with them, but the other half – her smarter half, she thinks – wants rest. As in, no interactions for the rest of the evening.
The previous song finishes when she hears it: the low hum of a male radio voice pumping through her right ear. She pauses her music and tries to raise her headphone volume, hoping to hear exactly what she has been condemned to listen to. But the volume will not increase. She accidentally blasts her ears as her own music resumes. This can’t continue.
She googles what could be the cause of the mysterious sound. Multiple devices linked. Okay. She unlinks her headphones from her computer and puts them on. The music and radio voice are still there. She sighs and keeps scrolling through the search results.
Multiple apps are open that use music… yeah, only Spotify is open.
Radio frequencies? Maybe? She has no idea how a radio frequency could infiltrate her headphones, especially because she has no such app on her phone. Alas, she takes the suggestion and wonders if the music will stop when they leave. The music did play like a jazz radio…
They board the plane back to their home city. She chats with her friends before putting her headphones on. The plane soars above the marshlands and fields, all of which she watches as the music calmly plays in her ears. No jazz music or radio voice leaks through her right ear. Huh.
Maybe it was a radio frequency after all.
This was written by our contributing writer, Lauren DeSantis.
Image Source: Pexels, Cottonbro
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