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[writing exercises - eavesdropping]
Jul. 20th, 2014 07:30 pm[Based on some very weird things overheard on the Stanford campus.]
Bob was the sort of fellow who made sounds for a living. His particular specialty was everyday, household sort of sounds; not a particularly high-paying job, but eminently satisfying. One could make a lot more money making sounds for explosions, but the trick to that was being on-hand when an explosion was about to happen and having the appropriate repertoire. “Boom!” and “Pow!” were all fine and good for the first few, but people expected a little more novelty in their sounds. Highly paid explosionagraphers had a range of pops and wooshes and incomprehensible gargling that Bob envied as beyond his ability to replicate.
Still, even if he wasn’t into the lucrative flash and “Bang!” of explosions, he made enough to live on and prided himself on his craft. It was the small things, really, and often the closest to home, that made the job: his wife’s relieved smile when he got the washing machine wub-wub-wubbing just right; the delighted shrieks of children when he whistled in the arrival of the ice cream truck. Outside his neighborhood, he worked part-time on the local university campus, voicing computer keyboards and the ding! of cash registers—or whatever else he might come across. He’d spent one entire afternoon covering for the guy who usually did footsteps; cheerfully intoning, “Flip, flop, flip, flop,” as he followed a man in sandals was the highlight of the day.
Another day was door slams and aeoliphone work outside the classrooms. “It’s a pun on their son’s name,” a woman said—then paused to smile appreciatively as Bob wooshed a gentle breeze behind her. “It was one of her conditions—she had, like, conditions, there were conditions for everything.”
“Click,” Bob replied with his own smile, as she pushed open a door to let her companion through. Then, “Thud,” as it closed behind them, and he pit-pit-pattered away to find someone else in need of his services.
It had been altogether one of his finer moments.
Bob was the sort of fellow who made sounds for a living. His particular specialty was everyday, household sort of sounds; not a particularly high-paying job, but eminently satisfying. One could make a lot more money making sounds for explosions, but the trick to that was being on-hand when an explosion was about to happen and having the appropriate repertoire. “Boom!” and “Pow!” were all fine and good for the first few, but people expected a little more novelty in their sounds. Highly paid explosionagraphers had a range of pops and wooshes and incomprehensible gargling that Bob envied as beyond his ability to replicate.
Still, even if he wasn’t into the lucrative flash and “Bang!” of explosions, he made enough to live on and prided himself on his craft. It was the small things, really, and often the closest to home, that made the job: his wife’s relieved smile when he got the washing machine wub-wub-wubbing just right; the delighted shrieks of children when he whistled in the arrival of the ice cream truck. Outside his neighborhood, he worked part-time on the local university campus, voicing computer keyboards and the ding! of cash registers—or whatever else he might come across. He’d spent one entire afternoon covering for the guy who usually did footsteps; cheerfully intoning, “Flip, flop, flip, flop,” as he followed a man in sandals was the highlight of the day.
Another day was door slams and aeoliphone work outside the classrooms. “It’s a pun on their son’s name,” a woman said—then paused to smile appreciatively as Bob wooshed a gentle breeze behind her. “It was one of her conditions—she had, like, conditions, there were conditions for everything.”
“Click,” Bob replied with his own smile, as she pushed open a door to let her companion through. Then, “Thud,” as it closed behind them, and he pit-pit-pattered away to find someone else in need of his services.
It had been altogether one of his finer moments.
