The Humming Of The World - Short Sleep Story

Welcome to Restful Journeys.

In this track,

I will be reading a custom short story named The Humming World.

Please find a place to lie down and relax.

Take a few moments to clear your mind and allow yourself to listen to these words and help you become calm.

Let's begin The Humming of the World.

The rain had been falling for hours,

A steady whispering sound against the windowpane.

It was the kind of rain that made the world shrink,

Made the inside feel vast and the outside a blurry,

Grey,

Non-place.

Arthur sat in his armchair,

The only light in the room coming from a small,

Green-shaded lamp on the table beside him.

The hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen was the only other sound,

A low,

Mechanical purr beneath the patter of the rain.

He held a book in his lap,

But he hadn't turned a page in what felt like a long time.

The words on the page were like little wavelengths,

As if the book were talking,

But they didn't seem to form any meaning.

He wasn't even sure what the book was about anymore,

A history of something,

A guide to something else.

It didn't matter,

The hum mattered,

The rain mattered.

He closed the book and set it on the floor.

The carpet was a deep,

Muted blue,

A color that seemed to absorb the faint light and the silence.

He watched a single drop of water trace a winding path down the outside of the window,

A tiny,

Crystal-clear river on the grimy glass.

It reached the bottom of the pane and vanished.

Another took its place,

Following a slightly different route.

It was a slow,

Mesmerizing dance.

Arthur felt a peculiar kind of peace,

A weightless feeling in his chest.

He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece above the fireplace.

It was an old clock,

Made of dark,

Polished wood,

With a quiet,

Steady tick.

The small hand pointed to the number four,

The large hand pointed to the number eight.

440,

Or was it 439?

He watched the second hand,

A thin,

Gold needle,

As it swept past the twelve,

Then one,

Then two.

He blinked,

The hand was now moving backward.

It swept past the two,

The one,

The twelve,

Back to the eleven.

He leaned forward a little,

His brow furrowed in a gentle,

Unconcerned confusion.

The hand continued its slow,

Deliberate reverse motion,

Tick,

Tick,

Tick.

It moved toward the ten,

Then the nine.

He felt no alarm.

It was simply an observation,

Like noticing the pattern of the water drop.

It was just a thing that was happening.

He thought about his day.

Had he gone to work?

He couldn't recall.

He remembered getting up,

Making coffee.

The coffee tasted of metal and chicory.

He remembered putting on his socks,

One blue,

One gray.

He looked down at his feet.

His socks were both black.

He looked again.

They were definitely black,

And he felt a quiet,

Pleasant certainty that he had worn black socks all day.

He had to have.

So why did he remember blue and the gray?

The memory was a little,

Faded photograph in his mind,

But it didn't fit the physical evidence of his feet resting calmly on the blue carpet.

The room seemed to be holding its breath.

The hum of the refrigerator grew a little louder.

A low drone that seemed to vibrate in his teeth.

Arthur looked at the bookshelf across the room.

The books were old friends,

Their spines worn and familiar.

He could tell you the name of every single book.

There was The Annotated Guide to Lost Cities,

A heavy blue volume,

And The Quiet Planet with its striking burnt orange cover,

And The Man Who Knew Too Much in dark green.

But tonight,

A strange new book was there,

A thin paperback book,

Its spine a brilliant,

Unsettling white.

He had never seen it before.

He stood up slowly,

The silence of the room gathering around him like a cloak.

He walked to the shelf.

The book was titled The Humming of the World.

The author's name was printed in small,

Elegant letters.

It was his own name,

Arthur T.

Finch.

He ran his hand over the spine.

The paper felt soft,

Almost like fabric.

He pulled it from the shelf and opened it to a random page.

The page was blank,

No words,

Just a faint,

Almost invisible watermark of a clock,

Its hands spinning lazily in a reverse direction.

He held the book up to the light of the green lamp.

The ticking sound from the mantelpiece clock had stopped.

There was only the low,

Unwavering hum of the refrigerator and the rain.

Always the rain,

A gentle,

Hypnotic curtain.

He looked back at the bookshelf.

All the other books were gone.

The heavy blue,

Lost cities,

And the orange,

Quiet planet,

And the dark green,

Man who knew too much,

They had all vanished.

The shelf was now filled with hundreds of thin,

White paperback books.

Every single one was titled The Humming of the World.

Every single one had his name on it.

He pulled another one down.

It was also blank.

Another also blank.

The pages were like soft,

Silent snow,

A ripple of sensation,

Not of fear,

But a profound tiredness washed over him.

He felt as if he had been climbing a long,

Slow hill,

And he was finally at the top.

The view wasn't what he expected.

It was just more of the same,

Stretching out in every direction.

The world wasn't a solid thing with hard edges.

It was a collection of quiet hums and gentle changes,

A slow unraveling of thread.

He went to the window and looked out.

The street lamps were not on,

The street was empty,

But through the shimmering curtain of rain,

He could see a figure,

A man in a long coat,

Standing beneath the single,

Unblinking street lamp.

The man's face was indistinct,

A blurry patch of darkness,

But he held a book in his hand,

A thin,

White book.

He looked up at Arthur's window.

He didn't wave.

He didn't move.

He simply stood there in the quiet,

Raining night.

Arthur felt a great and peaceful drowsiness settle over him.

The hum of the refrigerator seemed to be coming from inside his own head now,

A low,

Comfortable vibration.

The rain was no longer a sound,

It was a feeling,

A gentle pressure on his thoughts.

He felt the blue carpet beneath his feet,

The soft,

Yielding fibers.

He felt the quiet weight of the blank book in his hand.

He looked down at the book,

And as he did,

The cover began to dissolve.

The brilliant white faded into a soft,

Endless gray.

The words,

The humming of the world,

Drifted from the cover and floated through the air like specks of dust in a sunbeam until they,

Too,

Were gone.

He closed his eyes.

The world was a hum.

The world was a whisper.

The world was a peaceful,

Dissolving dream.

After several long minutes of focusing on the calm hum,

Arthur opened his eyes.

The hum was now different.

It was clearer now,

Less a sound,

And more a vibration that resonated in the air,

The ground,

The very bones of the world.

He was no longer standing next to the window.

He was standing on the wet pavement of the street.

The rain,

Still a gentle,

Rhythmic pattern all around him.

The man in the long coat was still there,

Standing beneath the single,

Unblinking street lamp.

His face was no longer indistinct.

It was calm and remarkable,

A face you would forget the moment you looked away.

The man held a small device in his hand,

A dull gray box,

From which the hum seemed to originate.

It's a signal,

The man said,

His voice as smooth and quiet as the rain itself,

A kind of metronome for reality.

It keeps the tempo,

Sets the rhythm.

Without it,

Things tend to unravel.

He gestured vaguely at the empty space where Arthur's apartment building should have been.

It was no longer there,

Just a blur of gray,

Where the humming was less defined.

You were a good witness,

The man continued,

One of the best.

Most people ignore the hum,

Or they try to fix the things that don't fit.

You simply observed.

You allowed your reality to reach its quiet conclusion.

Arthur felt no surprise,

No fear,

Just a deep,

Peaceful understanding.

My book,

He said,

The words filling foreign in his mouth,

The blank one.

That was your story,

The man explained,

Holding up his own thin,

White paperback.

Every life is a story,

A book that's written as it's lived.

Yours simply finished,

It's reached the end.

The pages were blank because the narrative has dissolved,

Leaving only the memory of what was.

He smiled,

A faint,

Almost imperceptible curve of his lips.

It's time for a new one,

From beneath his coat,

He produced another book.

This one was old and worn,

Its spine a familiar dark green.

Arthur's breath caught in his chest,

It was the man who knew too much.

The book he remembered seeing on his bookshelf,

But this time,

It was real.

The pages were no longer empty,

The man opened it to a random page.

The words were there,

Neat and moving like little wavelengths,

Just as Arthur had described.

This is an old one,

The man said,

A classic.

We keep the good stories in circulation,

The well-written ones.

There's a quiet little detective agency on the fourteenth floor of a building,

In a city that's always dark and rainy.

They solve impossible crimes,

It's a good one with a satisfying conclusion.

Arthur looked from the book to the man's calm,

Unremarkable face.

He felt a sense of immense relief,

Like the last piece of a puzzle had finally clicked into place.

The strange memories,

The reversed clock,

The dissolving walls,

It was all just the final chapter of a story coming to an end.

A story that was now over.

He reached out and took the book,

It was heavy in his hands,

Solid and real.

The humming seemed to grow louder,

More focused now.

The man in the coat began to dissolve,

His edges blurring into the rain until only the hum remained.

Arthur opened the book to the first page,

The hum settled into a low,

Steady thrum.

He began to read,

And as he did,

The world around him began to take shape.

The streetlights flickered to life,

The faint outline of a building appeared in the empty space before him.

A faint scent of old paper and dust filled the air,

And for the first time in what felt like an eternity,

Arthur felt a strange new sensation,

The feeling of a story beginning.

That concludes the humming of the world.

I hope you've enjoyed this story or able to relax and possibly fallen asleep.