[       ] noise

By Victoria Adukwei Bulley
& even when we said we were alone there was [       ] noise on the radio & there was [       ] noise in the car & there was [       ] noise all over the internet & there was [       ]  noise in the atmosphere & there was [       ] noise trapped in the system & there was [       ] noise in the economy & [       ] noise was the economy & there was [       ] noise on the train & there was [       ] noise on the road & there was [       ] noise at the board meeting & there was [       ] noise on the field & there was [       ] noise on the kitchen counter & [       ] noise in the cutlery drawer & there was [       ] noise at the hospital where there was [       ] noise in the blood & there was [       ] noise in the water supply & there was [       ] noise in the ocean & there was [       ] noise eating the ice caps & the polar bears were drowning because of it & washed up on the beaches then was a morbid & off-white [       ] noise & there was [       ] noise in the street & there was [       ] noise in the ozone a whole hole's worth of [       ] noise just counting down the days & there was [       ] noise in the photos of us because [       ] noise was on the lens & there was [       ] noise on the brain scan & there was [       ] noise during the exam where there was [       ] noise scratched into the desk & there was [       ] noise in the texts & there was [       ] noise in the census & there was [       ] noise in the law & there was [       ] noise on Friday at the cinema & there was [       ] noise at the seminar & there was [       ] noise at the peace talks & there was [       ] noise in the rent & there was [       ] noise on the wellness podcast & there was [       ] noise in the obituary & there were little [       ] noise cookies remaining even after carefully choosing reject all & there was [       ] noise in the inquest & there was [       ] noise in the commission & there was [       ] noise in the system you hear because [       ] noise was the system & too [       ] noise was reform & there was [       ] noise in the wounding & there was [       ] noise in the wording of the apology the [       ] noisiness of which made entirely void the apology & there was [       ] noise in the diversity statement & there was [       ] noise in the group chat & there was [       ] noise in the joke of it all, there was [       ] noise in the delivery & there was [       ] noise in the returns process & in the practice & in the prayer & it was there in the room with us still even when we said we were alone even when we swore that we could not hear it
Copyright Credit: Victoria Adukwei Bulley, "[      ] noise" from Quiet. Copyright © 2023 by Victoria Adukwei Bulley.  Reprinted by permission of Penguin Random House LLC.
Source: Quiet (Penguin Random House LLC, 2023)