FicWad

This is in no way related to anyone. All characters are mine and are not based on any event or person.

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When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.
Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak." But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."
The man asked him, "What is your name?"
"Jacob," he answered.
- Genesis 32:25-27

“And this is STAR, 106.5, bringing you what’s hot in today’s music world. Today we’ll start off with something new, The Killers, with their newest album, Sam’s Town, hitting right off the charts!” Jacob grumbled irritably in his bed, one hand flying out to see if he could reach his alarm clock, the one with the radio attached. His hand groped around blindly for a few minutes, until all he could do was get the volume increased, the snooze button just out of his reach as the song reverberated around in his head.

The teenage queen, the loaded gun;
The drop dead dream, the Chosen One
A southern drawl, a world unseen;
A city wall and a trampoline

I never really gave up on

Can you read my mind?
Can you read my mind?

Jacob groaned and closed his eyes, the song making him want to drift off to sleep once again, and it was well on its way to doing that, until he could smell cooking downstairs and hauled himself out of bed.

“God, is today Friday yet?” he grumbled to himself, checking the calendar and seeing that the date wasn’t even close to the date that he wanted. With a sigh, he went to go get dressed, bobbing his head to the beat of a new song.

You don't have to move, you don't have to speak
Lips for biting.
You're staring me down; a glance makes me weak
Eyes for striking.
Now I'm twisted up when I'm twisted with you
Brush so lightly
And time trickles down, and I'm breathing for two
Squeeze so tightly.
I'll be fine, you'll be fine.
This moment seems so long
Don't waste now, precious time
We'll dance inside the song
With a smile, he went down the stairs, grabbed a bite to eat and went out the door, ear buds securely in place from his mp3 player, the sound of his favorite bands pounding in his ears.

*

Today he had brought his radio along, to listen to while he ate outside. Lately he had been eating alone, because once people had realized that he did not want to talk while he listened to the music, they tended to scatter. His mind was always focused on the music, and today was like any other day, as he grabbed his lunch out of his bag and sat out by a tree, ignoring the people as they walked by and fiddling with the dials on his radio.

“C’mon, c’mon, work for me, work for me…” he mumbled as he finally hit the right dial and he grinned, music washing over him once again. Classic rock this time, as he had expanded from the pop culture that everyone listened to now days and was into the older stuff. Closing his eyes, he leaned back against his tree and just let the music play.

“What’s the deal with classic rock now anyway, I mean, come on, seriously, it’s still rock, just rock my parents used to listen to,” Jacob said out loud, and a group of girls walking by looked at him strangely, but he just ignored them. How could he not, when the music was playing?

Back in those days everything was simpler and more confused
One summer night, going to the pier
I ran into two young girls
The blonde one was called Freedom
The dark one, Enterprise
We talked and they told me this story
Now listen to this...

It was nice, just sitting there with the music, as he drifted in and out of it, and people were starting to look at him strangely. But, he did not care at this point, too entranced by the music that he just could not even find the will to care, even when the batteries died on his radio, and he continued to hear the music playing, going from one song to the next. It was all in his mind, this music that made him.

Jacob didn’t even hear the bell ring when it signified the time for lunch.

*
It was on his way home that he first knew that maybe something was a little off with his mp3 player, maybe it needed to be fixed. He turned it on, expecting to hear The Beatles, as usual, the ones he liked to hear on his way home on the bus, and he just heard silence for a few seconds.

He thought that the battery was low, that maybe it needed to be recharged, and then he heard it. The noise started out low, and it wasn’t music, as he was used to, but instead, it was something else. Something he wasn’t used to, something he couldn’t have ever imagined would be on his mp3 player, something that he was sure wasn’t on anyone else’s mp3 player, and he was sure.

“What do you think you are doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“I’m just doing what you told me I was supposed to be doing,”
“I don’t really remember what I told you to be doing, in all honesty,”

With a startled jerk, Jacob quickly pulled the earplugs from his ears and shook, because the voices, the noise, the words, did not stop even once the earplugs were gone.

“I thought I told you to stop it,”
“You did, but am I listening to you?”
“No,”
“Well, then I’m glad we’ve got the obvious out of the way,”
“I said stop it now,”
“No, should I be saying no sir now?”
“It would be much appreciated; I am your superior after all,”
“Then no sir, and I’m going to keep saying that if you do not stop,”
“And I’m telling you, hell no, I’m not stopping,”

“Stop it!” Jacob cried out, hands placed over his ears, as the other kids on the bus turned to look at him, some with shock on their faces, others with a mixture of amusement and some with scorn. Finally the bus came to his stop, and he ran off of the yellow house of horrors it had become, running past the laughter of the other children and the faces filled with fear on the others.

“Well sir, doesn’t he look like he’s finally coming to terms with what he’s doing?”
“Yes he does; in fact, one could say we were proud of him,”
“Proud of him sir?”
“Yes, I feel like I’m proud of him at least,”
“I said stop it, stop it, stop it!” Jacob yelled and ran all the way to his house, hands clamped shut over his ears as if to block out the noise, before he lay panting at his doorstep.

All noise gone.

*

It was another morning, and Jacob was determined to put the other day out of his mind. He didn’t want to think of those other voices, and he certainly was not going to think of how he had reacted to them. Instead, he woke up a few minutes earlier then his alarm clock, and lay in bed, thinking about the other day as he waited fr the clock to start and for him to get up and start his day.

What he did not expect was for his music today to be in something he did not expect.

Tête, oreilles,
deux yeux, un nez:
Ma polka fait tout bouger!
épaules, bras,
doigts, jambes et pieds:
Ma polka fait tout bouger!

“What the hell?” he asked out loud, reaching over and turning the dial on his clock radio. But it was the same song on each channel.

Qu'est-ce qui pousse
sur ta tête
comme le poil d'une bête?
Qu'est-ce qui pousse
sur ta tête?
Tire tes cheveux!

Qu'est-ce qu'il y a
de chaque côté,
qui te permet d'écouter?
Qu'est-ce qu'il y a
de chaque côté?
Tire tes oreilles!

He didn’t even know what they were saying, yet the words flowed through him like a current of water flows through a stream, and he sighed, thinking that maybe today was some sort of holiday that he hadn’t known about.

Regarde au loin
devant toi,
puis tourne les yeux vers moi.
Qu'est-ce qui fait que tu me vois?
Fais-moi un clin d'oeil!

Penses-tu avoir le nez fin?
Sais-tu sentir comme un chien?
Bouge ton nez comme un lapin!
Fais plisser ton nez!

After about the first phrase however, the last refrain, he was getting sick of it as he dressed and he turned the radio off, only to hear it still playing, the words spinning around the room.

“Oh god, make it stop already,” he groaned, hands instinctively going back to cover over his ears again, as he could still hear that damn lady singing in the foreign language.

“Why won’t it stop!?” He sighed loudly, and then grabbed his bag, running out the door, as if his room was the haven for the sounds, and he was simply an intruder upon it.

*

Jacob was worried when he woke up the next day to the sound of soft voices permeating his room.

“Ah, veo, pero me digo esto, puede ser hecho realmente?”
“Puede ser, pero con el estímulo correcto sólo usted ve, ninguno de esto pequeño llena.
“Usted significa que necesitamos un catalizador corrige?”
“Sí significo un catalizador, usted, qué piensa usted?”
“Penso che quello stimolo avrebbe ragione. Non ma forse. ...”
“Chi è le cure di inferno che voglio sapere,”

Jacob couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He was hearing voices, no people speaking in other languages, in his room, coming from his radio. Even when he turned off the radio, he could still hear them, ever so softly speaking and he wanted to cry from it all, just lay thee in bed and cry to make them stop. Maybe the sound of his tears could make them stop their talking.

“Ich sorge mich, Sie Abschaum, bescheidener Lebenssohn von einem Weibchen,”
“O que você acaba de chamar me!?”
“O que você todo que eu vou para casa”
“Hva om meg hm ? Når gjør jeg får min sjanse snakke?”
“Skrur De, vi ikke ville ha De her for det første,”
“Le persone sciocche e le loro maniere sciocche,”
“Idiot. Ich hasse Sie alle und Sie alle müssen stirbt stirbt sterben!”
“Таким образом я наконец обнаруживаюсь, и бью Вас всех в пыли!”

“Mom, I’m not able to go to school today, I’m feeling too sick,” Jacob called out and burrowed back under the covers, listening to the sound of the voices and praying for the day to be over already.

*

The next morning, when Jacob woke up hearing just coughing coming from his radio, he decided that today was a good day to sleep in. Thank god it was a Saturday and he could do so, of course.

*

The rest of the day was better, after he had slept in some more, gotten a few more hours of rest. The coughing was gone, replaced by the soft sounds of a jazz saxophone, and Jacob sat upright in bed, his eyes closed as his body swayed to the beat. Where was that beautiful sound, the pounding rhythm of the drums, the mellow sounds of the flute, where were they all coming from? Jacob got out of bed, and tried to find the source of the music, but even as he traced his steps throughout the house, his mother staring at him as if he was crazy when he didn’t answer any of her questions, he couldn’t find the source. He just kept on listening to the music, the way the sound of the jazz flute wove its way in and out of his mind, and then he stopped.
The music, it had stopped. With a frown, Jacob raced up the stairs and back to his room, sighing with relief as he collapsed back on the bed and the pounding of the drums resumed.

*

Later in that same afternoon, all Jacob could hear was a ticking clock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. That’s all that he heard, and he mumbled, trying to form words that would get the noise out of his head. All it did though was make the ticking louder, and he wanted to cry with the annoyance of it, of the annoyance of the now white noise in his head.

“Stop, what is this, stop, please, make it stop, please, I don’t know, what is this, please, stop,” he mumbled under his breath, until the ticking was like noise in the back of his head. And then it stopped, only to be replaced by a whistling noise.

Jacob got up from his desk where he had been trying to do his homework and went downstairs, certain that his mother was making tea or boiling water in a pot, because what else could be making that noise? It had to be one or the other, he was certain. All certainties were thrown to the wind, however, when he went downstairs and found no pot of water boiling, no kettle whistling, but one extremely worried mother.

“Jacob, honey, are you alright?” She asked, coming over to feel his forehead, see if he had a temperature or something of the sort, Jacob was sure of it.

“Mom, I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Will you tell who ever is honking their horn outside to knock it off, I’m trying to study,” Jacob said, and shrugging his shoulders, he went back upstairs, where he barricade himself in his room with the ticking clock, which he was sure just decided to lodge residence there in his room.

In the meantime, Jacob’s mother went outside to check to see who could be honking their car horn, even if she didn’t hear anything.

There was no one around.

*

Sunday morning. It was now Sunday, and Jacob dreaded turning on his alarm clock now, but he had to, he just HAD to, had to hear what was on the radio, it was a ritual he had every morning, and he couldn’t stop it now. With a hesitant sigh, he turned a shaky hand to the radio dial and turned it up.

A piercing scream could be heard through out the room, and Jacob sat bolt upright, as if someone had broken someone’s bones or wrenched a hip out of their socket, the scream was so horrible, it was painful to hear.

*

Jacob later realized that the scream was his.