William Davidson lives in York
and works as an English tutor for
deaf students.
THE
HUMMING
IS HERE
AGAIN
/ William Davidson
The humming is here again. All around and inside me. My skin
shimmers. Here’s what it is. When we were kids, he’d stand in the
corner of a room and hum up and down, sharp and flat, major and
minor, until he found the note: the resonant frequency. The walls
would start to mumble as he held the note. The floor and ceiling
would sing. It drove my mother mad. He’s been dead ten years but
his humming is here. And I still smell the sugar beet factory. The air
of the town was the root sweet air of the sugar beet factory. But the
factory’s gone now. They’ve turned it into houses. I couldn’t go near
this town for a long time after he died. He was everywhere. I stayed
away.
Kate Bush went back on stage, didn’t she? He loved Kate Bush.
Running Up That Hill. Loved her. When she came back, I thought
of how much he’d have wanted to see her. And the thinking about it
brought the humming back. And the smell of the sugar beet factory
too. He also loved Hunky Dory (he’d play Life on Mars on his piano);