How Chinese Is It?

E@L is sitting in the lounge-area of the living room, deeply absorbed in a book, his comfy chair is extended, his are legs up, resting his feet. There is no TV on, there is no CD or iPod playing. Flatmate Izzy, formerly famous person, is sitting cross-legged on the couch working on her laptop. Assignments in her graphic animation course are due.

The air-con had been set too low (how do I work this?) and it had been getting chilly so E@L turned it off a few minutes ago. Now it is totally quiet in the room.

The tap of fingers on the computer, the rustle of a page leaf ready to be turned...

Quiet? Well, mostly.

There is soft, low, wind-like howling sound that persists, humming around from an unplaceable, sub-sonic, general sort-of region around the bookshelves and chairs and antiques. It rises and falls slightly in volume and in pitch. It is the wind moaning in a forest storm, water groaning in a monastery's pipes, the growling breath at your feet of a dreaming dog. Once you hear it, you can't ignore it.

E@L has read the same sentence three time, six times. He puts down his book, annoyed at the continuing sussuration.

"Wish I'd bought a decent fucking wine-fridge," he says. "The fucking racket from this cheap crap is driving me crazy. I can't bloody-well concentrate."

"Oh, is that what that is?" asks Izzy.

With nowhere else to place it, a half-size wine fridge sits in the dining room side of the living area, sort of hidden behind a book-shelf. Its compression cycle seems to be on continuously.

"What did you think it was? Yeah, it's the wine-fridge. Christ, it howls all day and night, you must have heard it."




"I thought it was, you know," she says, "like, ghosts or something."




... [insert E@L's quizzical expression] ...

"You thought the place was haunted? You've been living here for over a year, thinking you were in a haunted house and it never bothered you to say anything?"

"Well, shit, you know, man."

Shaking his head is...

E@L