{"id":20842,"date":"2012-03-31T20:19:48","date_gmt":"2012-04-01T00:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/static\/?p=20842"},"modified":"2012-04-05T22:43:03","modified_gmt":"2012-04-06T02:43:03","slug":"the-drone-inside-the-house-has-not-stopped-for-three-days-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/2012\/the-drone-inside-the-house-has-not-stopped-for-three-days-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"“The drone inside the house has not stopped for three days” (Italy)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

“A Natural Experiment”<\/h3>\n

\u2014Gail Mair<\/a> (Italy)<\/p>\n

The radio is on full blast and I\u2019m fiddling around in the kitchen with no real purpose except the purpose of keeping myself busy. \u00a0I glance out the window. \u00a0Between the vanilla-scented leaves of the fig tree I can just make out Mark\u2019s wheelbarrow, but the man himself has disappeared. \u00a0I consider going out to look for him but that would mean stepping over the threshold and the skin on my arms recoils at the thought, pulling the hair up, hedgehog style.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a glorious summer day, the stuff holiday brochures are packed full of, but here I am\u2014hesitating. \u00a0I give myself a mental kick, pick up the camera and go outside.<\/p>\n

Today isn\u2019t quite so bad, and I can still hear the radio blaring away from inside the house. \u00a0I\u2019ll go and listen to the bees, maybe take a few pictures; that will calm the jitters I haven\u2019t been able to shake off\u2014a feeling of ants scurrying around just beneath my skin.<\/p>\n

I concentrate hard: all the country sights and sounds\u2014birds, insects, lizards\u2014are just as they\u2019ve always been. \u00a0And yet there is the other thing, too. \u00a0I ignore it. \u00a0A shovelfull of dirt flies out of the hillside and into the wheelbarrow\u2014plunk.<\/p>\n

Mark is nowhere to be seen. \u00a0I take another step forward. \u00a0 Plunk, a second shower of earth and stones. \u00a0Plunk, a third. \u00a0Another step and I see him, intent on the back wall of his hole in the hill\u2014his soundproof hideaway, his refuge, his defiance of a law that prohibits mechanical removal of soil without a permit: plunk!<\/p>\n

He pauses. \u00a0I click. \u00a0He turns towards me for a moment and then turns away again, watching the small landslides crumbling into the crater with a soft rumbling swish.<\/p>\n

Full wheelbarrow\u2014click. \u00a0The dark base of the cave with its glint of water\u2014click. \u00a0I have the series here on the table as I write. \u00a0My husband\u2019s hair is brown with dust; it makes him seem younger but for the look in his eyes.<\/p>\n

I walk past, up the trampled path to the bees and sit down. \u00a0The sun\u2019s warmth radiates off the hives, but a core coldness lingers. \u00a0I take a deep breath, hoping the familiar scent will do its healing work as I lean my head on the side of the hive and listen to the soothing hum.<\/p>\n

Two thin streaks make their way down my cheeks; I can no longer shut out the turbines\u2019 incessant whine.<\/p>\n

\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb<\/p>\n

The drone inside the house has not stopped for three days. \u00a0Low and insidious. \u00a0It\u2019s worse at night. \u00a0There is no escape. \u00a0It takes me when and where it wants, hour after hour, day after day, sometimes week after week leaving me weak with depression.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s bedtime. \u00a0Mark\u2019s eyes are on me. \u00a0How can he not know what I\u2019m feeling after all our years together? \u00a0How can I not know he\u2019s watching me? \u00a0We circle round each other in a protective dance. \u00a0My fingers hover over the switch of the CD player and then draw back. \u00a0Magou\u2019s magic cannot save me. \u00a0I\u2019m exhausted but I dare not go to bed. \u00a0I dread the moment the music stops and I step off the roundabout, reeling, nauseous\u2014but on or off, I can’t trick my body with a musical box.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m bolt upright in bed and soaking wet. \u00a0I hear my own screams echo in the dark. \u00a0My heart pounds wildly. There is nothing tangible to fight and nowhere to run. \u00a0Mark\u2019s arms are round me, gently restraining. \u00a0His heartbeat calms my own and his hands stroke my hair. \u00a0He whispers reassuring words but his face is wet: I am not a child. \u00a0He knows. \u00a0We both know.<\/p>\n

\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb<\/p>\n

The dirty-looking green and white paint is chipped where the hospital beds take the bends too fast and in any other places where they manage to make contact with the walls. \u00a0(No reason the drivers should change their driving habits at work, I suppose.) \u00a0The waiting room is in the drafty corridor\u2014three battered plastic chairs. I\u2019m perched uncomfortably on one of them alongside a shrivelled up mummy and a zombie. \u00a0I wonder what kind of monster I am, but the other two don\u2019t look at me or seem to recognise me as one of their species.<\/p>\n

The zombie\u2019s eyes are open, vacant. \u00a0The mummy\u2019s are closed. \u00a0The mummy is stiff with papery skin and will have to be prised off the seat before it can lumber into the doctor\u2019s surgery. \u00a0The zombie is somewhere else. \u00a0What can a doctor possibly do for either?<\/p>\n

Signora Alderly?<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s me. \u00a0I still can\u2019t get used to hearing my maiden name after 30 years of marriage\u2014just one more thing to resent in this god-forsaken hole. \u00a0I\u2019m led into an office and left there.<\/p>\n

The doctor will be with you in a minute.<\/em><\/p>\n

I very much doubt that; I just saw him light up on the balcony at the far end of the corridor.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sitting with my back to the door\u2014really bad fang shui. \u00a0I can feel the tension in the skin of my back. \u00a0I shift position and take in the glass-fronted cabinets with files, tattered and dusty with age. \u00a0There\u2019s a crack in the window and a blue bottle buzzing around irritatingly. \u00a0Even the spiders don\u2019t seem particularly interested in their jobs.<\/p>\n

The door opens. I swivel round to the desk, scraping the floor with the aluminium chair legs. \u00a0I can smell the stale smoke. \u00a0The doctor sits down, plonks a bag on the desk and extracts a folder of exactly the same dingy shade as the files in the cabinet. \u00a0Someone must have ordered a bulk delivery half a century ago. \u00a0He\u2019s intent on something in the folder. \u00a0A piece of paper appears and a pen.<\/p>\n

Sophie Alderly?<\/em><\/p>\n

He finally looks up. \u00a0I\u2019m not one hundred percent certain that he can see me\u2014maybe I\u2019m a ghost\u2014but he seems solid enough.<\/p>\n

“Yes!” \u00a0The room absorbs my voice. \u00a0Strange.<\/p>\n

The doctor has the same desiccated look as the mummy outside. \u00a0I\u2019m having a nightmare again but it feels real. \u00a0I wonder how old he is. \u00a0Fifty, sixty or five hundred?<\/p>\n

What brings you here?<\/em><\/p>\n

I deliver my story; he scratches away on the sheet of paper. \u00a0 I don\u2019t know what he takes down but I get the feeling the file will vanish into thin air the moment I leave the office. \u00a0The fly starts buzzing around again. \u00a0He seems to be listening now because he\u2019s put his pen down. \u00a0I want him to record everything, everything\u2014but the folder will disappear anyway, so what\u2019s the point?<\/p>\n

I can give you some mood elevators<\/em>, I hear him say.<\/p>\n

A chemical brightener to make my washing look white even if it\u2019s grey?<\/p>\n

“But that won\u2019t change the situation!”<\/p>\n

He\u2019s irritated: It won\u2019t cost you anything.<\/em><\/p>\n

A lightning bolt hits me: the patients in the waiting room, the situation\u2014he thinks I\u2019m here for a free soma<\/em> holiday. The truth is too ugly to contemplate. \u00a0I decline politely. \u00a0He\u2019s baffled.<\/p>\n

What do you want of me, then?<\/em><\/p>\n

I tell him clearly what I want, without stuttering. \u00a0(That surprises me.) \u00a0I want a doctor\u2019s certificate to say I was here and why I was here. \u00a0I can see the disbelief on his face, feel him floundering. \u00a0He\u2019s in deep water. \u00a0I enjoy his discomfort.<\/p>\n

It won\u2019t prove anything<\/em>, he says.<\/p>\n

I know that\u2014but it\u2019s what I want.<\/p>\n

I want the doctor to write that I came to see him because the wind turbines are making me ill and I want him to sign it. \u00a0Those responsible for building the wind farm have forced themselves upon me, taken control of my life and home, invaded my waking thoughts and my dreams but I am going to force one member of the establishment, at least, to submit to my will. \u00a0He resists.<\/p>\n

“Write it. \u00a0Please.”<\/p>\n

He scrawls something on a piece of paper\u2014both sides\u2014and signs. \u00a0He reads it out to me: \u00a0just the slippery wishy-washy nothingness I\u2019d expected, but I\u2019m conscious of a surge of power. \u00a0I\u2019m back in the land of the living.<\/p>\n

I put the grubby blue envelope into my rucksack, get up, scrape back the chair. \u00a0The sitting is at an end.<\/p>\n

He looks up and smiles brightly. \u00a0I would suggest a follow-up sitting in a month. \u00a0You can make an appointment at reception. \u00a0Think about the tablets. \u00a0Goodbye.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>.<\/span>
\nEditor’s note<\/em>: \u00a0Unfortunately, this is not fiction; all this happened to\u00a0the author. \u00a0This website exists for the Gail Atkinson-Mairs<\/a> of the world.<\/p>\n

I do not ask who you are, that is not important to me,
\nYou can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold you.<\/p>\n

To cotton-field drudge or cleaner of privies I lean,
\nOn his right cheek I put the family kiss,
\nAnd in my soul I swear I never will deny him.<\/p>\n

To anyone dying, thither I speed and twist the knob of the door,
\nTurn the bed-clothes toward the foot of the bed,
\nLet the physician and the priest go home.<\/p>\n

I seize the descending man and raise him with resistless will,
\nO despairer, here is my neck,
\nBy God, you shall not go down! hang your whole weight upon me.<\/p>\n

\u2014Walt Whitman, “Leaves of Grass” (1855)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“A Natural Experiment” \u2014Gail Mair (Italy) The radio is on full blast and I\u2019m fiddling around in the kitchen with no real purpose except the purpose of keeping myself busy. \u00a0I glance out the window. \u00a0Between the vanilla-scented leaves of the fig tree I can just make out Mark\u2019s wheelbarrow, but the man himself has disappeared. \u00a0I consider going out to look for him but that would mean stepping over the threshold and the skin on my arms recoils at the thought, pulling the hair up, hedgehog style. It\u2019s a glorious summer day, the stuff holiday brochures are packed full of, but here I am\u2014hesitating. \u00a0I give myself a mental kick, pick up the camera and go outside. Today isn\u2019t quite so bad, and I can still hear the radio blaring away from inside the house. \u00a0I\u2019ll go and listen to the bees, maybe take a few pictures; that will calm the jitters I haven\u2019t been able to shake off\u2014a feeling of ants scurrying around just beneath my skin. I concentrate hard: all the country sights and sounds\u2014birds, insects, lizards\u2014are just as they\u2019ve always been. \u00a0And yet there is the other thing, too. \u00a0I ignore it. \u00a0A shovelfull of dirt flies out of the hillside and into the wheelbarrow\u2014plunk. Mark is nowhere to be seen. \u00a0I take another step forward. \u00a0 Plunk, a second shower of earth and stones. \u00a0Plunk, a third. \u00a0Another step and I see him, intent on the back wall of his hole in the hill\u2014his soundproof hideaway, his refuge, his defiance of a law that prohibits mechanical removal of soil without a permit: plunk! He pauses. \u00a0I click. \u00a0He turns towards me for a moment and then turns away again, watching the small landslides crumbling into the crater with a soft rumbling swish. Full wheelbarrow\u2014click. \u00a0TheRead More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[157,166,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20842"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/static\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}