The Click

By Philip Lear

Jerry was having his second cup of coffee reading the Sunday Times. He was feeling rather mellow when he first heard it.

Click…click. The sound was metallic and sharp, not quite like a camera shutter or a stopwatch, but a click nonetheless. Though slightly annoying at first, he paid no attention to this nonspecific click. On the chain of things this was way down there.

Click…click.

For a while the click continued and outwardly he continued to ignore it. But underneath he was furious that anything should have the nerve to invade the sanctity of his Sunday morning bliss. After forty minutes when he had finished reading the op-ed page, he put down the paper and looked around. Where is that noise coming from? As he walked from room to room looking in corner after corner, the sound continued, but he couldn’t tell

Click…click.

And there was nothing wrong with his hearing. But it was unnerving not being able to tell what a sound is and where it’s coming from. Sounds are usually clear-cut cause-effect things, and he continued his search for a logical explanation.

Jerry checked the smoke detectors, TVs, cable boxes, cell phones, radios and computers and found nothing. He tried to think of what other objects clicked. He looked under the beds, in the dressers, closets and in the kitchen cabinets.

And how could he say the click was unimportant if he didn’t know anything about it? It could be very important. He went into the basement and checked the furnace, hot water heater, humidifier and air purifier. Then he searched the attic. Other than piles of dust, he found nothing.

He timed the frequency of the clicks, thinking that might yield some clue as to the type of device that was making the sound. They were coming every ten seconds. Was it some kind of hidden warning? Some smoke detectors make sounds when the batteries need replacement. Was some kind of failure imminent?

Jerry walked across the street and knocked on his neighbor’s door.

Click, click, click…it went as he walked. He looked up at the power transformer on the telephone pole, but it wasn’t coming from there.

Claire Matthews, his neighbor, had hearing like a fox. She was a music teacher. He’d find out what she heard.

"Hi Jerry," she said. “What can I do for you?”

Clair was a tall thin woman in her fifties. When she opened the door she was rubbing her hands in her apron. Jerry could smell the sweetness of something baking.

“Making some cookies?” he asked.

“Marble cake.”

“Smells delicious,” he said.

“I’ll bring a piece over when it’s done,” she said.

“That’s very kind of you. But that’s not why I came over here.”

Click, click, the noise persisted.

“Claire, have you heard any funny sounds lately?"

“Funny sounds?”

He didn’t want to let on what kind of sounds he was hearing.

She crossed her arms and gave him a weird look. "Funny sounds? What do you mean?"

“Listen right now, and let me know what you hear.”

She cupped her right hand and raised it to her ear. She was really listening intently. But after a minute she sighed and shook her head.

“Nothing?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she replied.

He felt like an idiot.

“I keep hearing clicking sounds but can’t figure out where they’re coming from. I just thought you might be hearing them too."

She looked at him and shook her head. "Clicking, I don't know about you, Jerry."

“Well, never mind. Sorry I bothered you.”

“No trouble at all,” she said as she closed the door.

Jerry went back into his house, slumped down on the couch and picked up the paper, trying to get back into that mellow Sunday zone. But it was impossible.

He plugged his ears with cotton, but still heard the sound. If Clair didn’t hear it and if he still heard it when his ears were plugged up, the sound had to be coming from inside him. That’s scary, he thought. I’m clicking.

The next morning he went to see his doctor, Ben King. Since the sound was coming from inside of him, the Doc should be the perfect guy to track it down.

The Doctor put his stethoscope to Jerry’s chest, back and neck. He listened closely, grunting occasionally. He looked in his ears, eyes and down his throat. He hit his knees with a little rubber hammer. He even took a rubber glove and checked his prostate.

“Well, Doc, did you find anything in there?” Jerry quipped.

“I don’t hear anything,” Dr. King said.

Click, click, click—the sound reverberated around the room. He couldn’t believe that the doctor couldn’t hear it.

“What should I do now, Doc? This clicking is getting to me.”

“Here’s a prescription for some tranquilizers. Sometimes they can help in situations like this. Call me in two weeks,” he said.

“Thanks, Doc. I’ll give it a try,” he said.

Two weeks later when the clicking was still there, he called Dr. King.

“Doc, the tranquilizers are really relaxing, but the sound’s still there.”

“There’s an ear, nose and throat man I want you to see. Sometimes the inner ear does funny things. There’s a medical condition called tinnitus, which causes a ringing in the ear. Maybe this is something akin to that.”

Jerry went to Dr. Good who examined his ears, tested his hearing and sent him for a sinus scan.

“I couldn’t find the source of your problem. Maybe it’s psychological. I want you to see Dr. Martin. He specializes in treating people who hear things,” the doctor said.

“What do you mean by ‘hear things.’ What kind of things?” Jerry asked indignantly.

“Voices, sounds, noises,” Dr. Good replied.

“And how is a psychiatrist supposed to help?” he asked.

“If people imagine hearing things, sometimes they can help,” Dr. Good said.

Jerry was starting to get riled up.

“You know. Every time doctors can’t find something, they say it’s a psychological problem.”

“Please don’t get upset. I’m just trying to help,” the doctor said.

Jerry didn’t bother to follow up. He’d read about those crazy people who hear voices and he remembered the Son of Sam who said that voices were telling him to kill. And though he thought about killing Dr. Good for suggesting the psychiatrist, he knew he wasn’t crazy.

Jerry noticed that the frequency of the clicking started to increase. For two days it went to every five seconds. And he was starting to get nervous. Even with the tranquilizers he couldn’t seem to calm down. When the clicks started to come every two seconds and then every second, Jerry was in a state of hysteria, but there was no one for him to turn to. All he could do was sit and wait. He knew that the countdown was nearly over.