The Last Hum

In the autumn of 2018, after my messy split with Marcus, I moved into a creaky Victorian house on the edge of town. It was cheap, and I needed space to think. The landlord warned me about the old boiler, the drafty windows, but he said nothing about the radio. It sat on the kitchen counter, a dusty 1970s transistor with a cracked dial. I didn’t own a radio, and every time I turned it off, it came back on within minutes, always tuned to a station that played nothing but static. I figured it was a wiring issue, or maybe the ghost of the previous tenant had a thing for dead air.

I was a nurse at the local clinic, and my shifts were grueling. Sleep was a luxury. One night, after a double shift, I trudged home, hoping for a peaceful rest. I dropped my keys on the table, kicked off my shoes, and collapsed onto the couch. The radio was already on, hissing softly. I didn’t have the energy to fight it. I closed my eyes, and in the fog between waking and sleeping, I heard a voice beneath the static. It was a low, melodic hum, almost like a lullaby. It was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I assumed my overtired brain was playing tricks.

The next morning, I woke to silence. The radio was off, and the house felt still. I went about my routine, but the hum kept replaying in my head. It wasn’t unpleasant; it was comforting, like something my mother used to hum when I was sick as a child. That thought unsettled me because my mother had died years ago, and I rarely thought of her. I shrugged it off and went to work.

Days passed. The radio would come on at odd hours, but only when I was alone, usually when I was tired or stressed. The hum grew clearer, more defined. One night, as I was dozing on the couch, I heard it say, not in words but in feeling, ‘Come closer.’ I found myself leaning toward the radio, my ear almost touching the speaker. The static coalesced into a shape, a shape of sound that wrapped around my head like a warm hand. I fell asleep with my head on the counter.

I started to sleepwalk. My roommate, a night owl named Cait, would find me in the kitchen, staring at the radio, my lips moving in silent conversation. She said I was muttering, but she couldn’t make out the words. I had no memory of it. I was losing sleep, and my work was suffering. I told my doctor, who suggested therapy and sleeping pills. The pills helped me sleep, but I’d wake up in odd corners of the house, the radio blaring static in the room I’d left.

One evening, I decided to get rid of the radio. I unplugged it, wrapped it in a trash bag, and drove to the dump. As I tossed it into the bin, the static seemed to grow louder, and I felt a pang of loss. That night, the silence in the house was deafening. I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned, my mind racing. I kept thinking about the hum, and I began to feel it in my chest, a vibration, like I was resonating with something.

I returned to the dump the next day, but the radio was gone. I searched the entire area, but nothing. I went home, defeated. The radio was back on the kitchen counter, clean, as if it had never been touched. I screamed at it, ‘Why won’t you leave me alone?’ The static swirled, and the hum became a word, a single word that echoed through my skull: ‘Wait.’

A week later, I was in the basement, doing laundry. The radio had moved down there, plugged into a socket near the water heater. I had unplugged it again, but there it was, humming. I was exhausted, my nerves frayed. I knelt down and put my ear to the speaker. The static was deafening, but beneath it, I heard my mother’s voice. She was singing a song I had forgotten, a lullaby she used to sing to me. Tears streamed down my face. I asked, ‘Mom?’ The static crackled, and a voice, barely there, said, ‘I’m stuck, baby. I’m stuck in the hum.’

I didn’t know what to do. I called my brother, who told me I was grieving and delusional. He suggested I see a psychiatrist. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that my mother was trying to tell me something, something important. I started to spend more time with the radio, trying to communicate. I would ask yes or no questions, and the static would change, sometimes rising in pitch for yes, dropping for no. I asked, ‘Are you in pain?’ The static rose, high and piercing. ‘Can I help you?’ The static dropped, low and mournful.

One night, I had an idea. I recorded the static and played it back at slow speed. Under the hiss, I heard fragmented words: ‘…the other side…’ and ‘…don’t trust the silence…’ I felt a chill. The silence in my house had become oppressive, like a physical weight. Sometimes I would wake up and hear my own heart beating, but no other sound. The neighbors complained about my radio, but they said they heard nothing but static. I was becoming a recluse.

Then, one night, the radio went silent. The static vanished, and the hum stopped. I panicked. I shook the radio, but it was dead. I tried plugging it in other rooms, but nothing. I was finally free, but I felt an immense void. I didn’t realize how much I had come to rely on that hum. I spent the next few days in a daze, feeling empty.

A month later, I was walking through a thrift store, and I saw a similar transistor radio on a shelf. My heart raced. I bought it without hesitation. I took it home, plugged it in, and turned it on. Static. I waited. After an hour, the static shifted, and the familiar hum returned. But it was different, colder, more distant. I asked, ‘Mom?’ The static was silent for a long time. Then, a voice I didn’t recognize said, ‘She’s gone, but I’m here. I’ve been waiting for you.’

The radio now follows me. I can’t throw it away; every time I try, something stops me. I’m writing this while it hums on my nightstand, and I feel the presence of something else in the room, something that isn’t my mother. I don’t know what I’ve opened, but I know I can’t close it. The hum has become my prison, and I don’t know if I’m the one keeping it alive, or if it’s keeping me alive, just to enjoy the sound of my fear.

If you have a radio like this, if you find it in an old house, do not turn it on. Do not listen to the static. Because the hum, the hum is a door, and you don’t know what will walk through. And once you hear it, you’ll never truly hear silence again. I know I won’t.