When I walk fast I hear horse trotting sounds and when I walk slowly, as I do in the City looking in store windows I hear my long-dead grandmother shuffling to the kitchen in her beat-up slippers. There are other sounds I hear—when I’m running, turn my head (different right or left, fast or slow), swinging my arms, scratching my back (sawing lumber), rubbing my eye (chalk on blackboard) and so on.
I’ve talked to my doctor about this and he hones in on the horse trotting and asked if it would be worthwhile going to the track together and see if I could pick winners. I asked him to take me serious and he said, “I am taking you serious and I want you to know I’m serious too.” Then he suggested I see a shrink or an ear doctor because I’m either delusional or have a rare and unheard of form of tinnitus.
I slide my chair back to leave and the wood on wood scraping causes me to hear soldiers marching towards me. Once up I push the chair back on the oak floor and now there are soldiers marching from the other direction. I glance back at my doctor as I’m walking out of his office and he’s drumming his fingers on his desk. I need to get out fast to beat the migrating gazelles I hear gaining on me from behind.
Paul Beckman collects memories and punchboards. Some publishing credits: Pank, Connotation Press, Journal of Microliterature, Litro, Boston Literary Magazine, The Connecticut Review & other fine magazines online & in print. He’s had three collections and a novella published. His latest flash story collection, “Peek” from Big Table Publishing came out in Feb. 2015 weighing in at 65 stories and 117 pages. It can be purchased from his published story website www.paulbeckmanstories.com or Amazon.
–Art by Mustafa Dedeoğlu
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