One Hearts

Ch/1 The heart hums at 1 Hz

Ba-bum

That's the sound of a heartbeat. A percussive double-beat repeating endlessly. Or at least it is to most people. Unfortunately, I'm stuck hearing something quite different.

For a normal living human being, the heart continuously beats at a certain rate, their own personal heart rate. It beats nonstop at this specific rate, each beat contracting and expanding the heart muscles, creating a pulse that resonates throughout the body. Like a stereo speaker, this constant periodic pulse creates a small soundwave, a low frequency hum silent to most.

And this hum is what I hear.

Whenever I'm around human beings, or really any living creature with a beating heart, I can hear this soft humming resonating from their chest. Apparently, this is because my hearing is more sensitive than most, so I'm able to hear lower notes than humans should be able to.

Normal human hearing is set to a certain range of frequencies. This is why humans can't hear dog whistles or whale song. And why humans should not be able to hear the vibrations of their own muscles.

However, because of my acute hearing, I'm able to hear lower notes than what should be humanly possible. I don't know what my lower limit is, but it's low enough that I'm able to hear the full range of human heartbeats.

But surely a heartbeat shouldn't be that loud, right? After all, the heart is generally caged behind several "walls". Well, somehow, my ears are sensitive enough that these soft sounds are about as loud as a fly buzzing in front of my face, as if to be a cruel joke.

Though, if I've been hearing these sounds all my life I should be used to it by now, right? If it's a collectively single low buzz it'd be easy to tune out, right? Well, that would be the case if everyone's hearts beat at the same rate. But since humans vary by nature, so do their hearts. And so, what I do hear is a cacophony of out-of-tune notes all playing at once. And it doesn't help that heart rates change constantly depending on the situation. So I'm stuck eternally drowned in noise.

Of course, I could just simply avoid humans, but that's not a simple task to do, especially since I'm currently at school.

Yes, compulsory primary education. I've somehow lasted through 11 years and I won't let this annoyance stop me from finishing out my last year. Sure, it's been tough, but I've developed some amount of countermeasures.

For starters, I try to situate myself away from the center of the "noise", such as the back corner of the classroom I'm in now, staring outside the window into the vast soundless space. I put an unsociable aura around myself to prevent people from getting too close to me. It doesn't help too much but any additional distance is welcomed. Occasionally, I can plug my ears with earbuds or the likes, but that's not exactly welcomed in a classroom environment, so I've abstained for now.

But physical counters can only do so much. I find that trying to tune out the "noise" is more effective. It's simple; I just need to shift my focus on a specific point, whether it's the lecture, the student's gossips next to me, or the odd daydream I've stumbled into. However, this only reduces the humming to background noise at best and the simplest slip of focus will drop me back into the sea of noise once again.

This especially happens when I'm utterly bored and have nothing to focus on.

Well, I suppose thinking of my situation while waiting for class to begin has kinda taken my mind off, but the buzzing is starting to creep back in. I rest my forehead on my folded hands and let out a sigh.

From the corner of my eye, students slowly pile in. Since this school has a somewhat strict dress code, everyone is wearing a button-down shirt with either slacks for boys and skirts for girls. But the school is lenient enough with color, so there's slight rainbow of hues around. For instance, I'm currently wearing a white short sleeve blouse and red skirt. Though, my clothes are a bit disheveled to help with my unapproachable nature.