"Goodbye and thank you, Miss Pascual. See you around…"
The classroom door slid shut behind her, the soft thud echoing faintly through the room before dissolving into the ordinary shuffle of chairs and voices. I had barely taken two steps away from my desk when the ringing began.
It pierced through my right ear without warning, high-pitched and electric, like microphone feedback trapped inside my skull. The sound was thin but aggressive, vibrating inward instead of outward, pressing behind my eyes, along my jaw, settling somewhere I couldn't reach. I froze where I stood, breath caught halfway in my lungs, before slowly raising my hand to cover my ear.
My palm pressed hard against it, folding cartilage under my fingers as if I could smother the noise physically. I tugged lightly at the skin, wincing, then clicked my tongue in irritation when it did nothing to help. The fluorescent lights above me buzzed faintly, their hum blending with the ringing until I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. I lowered myself back into my chair, the plastic seat warm beneath me, and waited for the sound to pass.
It's like this sometimes.
I hear things I cannot name properly, sounds that don't belong to the spaces around me. If I tried to describe them out loud, people would probably look at me differently. Carefully. Like I was something fragile, or something cracked.
I almost wish I've lost my mind already.
Staying sane isn't something I like anymore. And yet my consciousness refuses to leave. Instead, it drifts, hovering just slightly outside of me, like my awareness is placed half a step behind my own body. I move, I speak, I respond, but a part of me only watches it happen.
Like I'm spectating myself in third person.
The sensation is difficult to explain. It isn't dramatic. It's quiet. Subtle. Like slipping out of alignment by a fraction.
And the sounds… they don't help.
Years ago, I remember hearing someone whisper directly into my ear. Korean words first, soft and breath-laced, followed by English spoken just as close. I had felt the illusion of warmth near my skin, even though no one had been there. Maybe it was from watching too many television dramas late into the night, voices playing through cheap earphones until my brain blurred fiction with reality.
Still, the memory clung to me.
Unsettling. Intimate in the wrong way.
Doesn't this mean I'm actually crazy?
Not many people know. Not many people care.
"Jane."
The voice came from behind me, pulling me back into the present while the ringing thinned into a fading hum in my left ear. I turned slowly, grounding myself again in the classroom, and found Valerie standing there with her phone in both hands. The light from her screen reflected faintly on her face while her fingers hovered mid-scroll, waiting for my attention.
I blinked once, clearing the last haze from my head.
Oh. Right.
"Yes, Val?" I said, facing her fully.
By then, the ringing had disappeared completely. In its place came the ordinary sounds of noon. Electric fans whirring overhead, papers rustling, distant laughter leaking in from the hallway. I reached beneath my chair and pulled out my tumbler, the metal cool against my palm as I twisted the lid open.
Valerie was still glancing at her phone, so I took a long sip. The water was cold enough to sting my teeth and slide sharply down my throat.
She looked up. "What did your uncle say? Did he want to get interviewed and all?"
I nodded, cheeks slightly puffed with water as I screwed the lid back on. I crouched to place the tumbler under my seat, the hollow clunk echoing softly against the tiled floor, before swallowing everything in one go.
The water went down wrong immediately.
I choked, coughing hard as my lungs seized in protest. I bent forward, covering my mouth while tears sprang to my eyes, my free hand gripping the chair for support. Each cough scraped painfully up my throat, my chest tightening as I struggled to pull in air.
"Yeah," I wheezed out between coughs.
I patted my chest repeatedly, forcing my breathing to steady. For a brief, absurd moment, the thought crossed my mind that I might actually die like this.
Choking on water.
What a pathetic cause of death.
Then again, realistically speaking, there would probably be another reason that would end my life someday.
Once the coughing subsided, I inhaled deeply, air tasting dry and faintly metallic. "I mean, yes," I corrected hoarsely. "My tito agreed to the interview, but he's only free in the evening."
I cleared my throat and rubbed at it, feeling the lingering burn from the choking. The sensation made my thoughts wander.
Is choking equivalent to drowning?
Water enters from the mouth either way. The epiglottis is supposed to prevent it from reaching the lungs, but drowning means water fills them anyway. So is choking just a smaller, interrupted version of drowning?
Right?
…I don't know.
"Right now it's probably almost midnight where he lives," I added, glancing up at the ceiling where paint peeled near the fan. "So he's most likely asleep after his morning shift."
"Oh, okay. So the interview can happen tonight, right?" Valerie said, though her attention split when her boyfriend approached, the faint smell of fried food clinging to his uniform.
"Yeah," I replied after a short pause. "And don't worry, I know what to do. We're going to have the interview on Google Meet so I can record the call. Then I'll use my phone to record the audio separately for the transcript, just in case."
"Let's go. They already got us a table," he urged from beside her.
I turned to grab my phone from the desk, the screen lighting up against my palm. Behind me, Valerie's voice dropped into a quiet scold, muffled but sharp as she reprimanded him for interrupting.
It didn't bother me. If anything, it reminded me that it was already lunch break.
The classroom carried the faint smells of paper, ink, and leftover perfume as students filtered out.
"Can you send an update in the group chat later, Jane?"
I looked back, brow lifting slightly in confusion.
She clarified, "Like before you start interviewing him."
"Yeah, sure. No problem."
She stood, handing her phone to Oliver just as another voice called from the doorway.
"Jane! Come on, let's eat!"
I turned and saw my friends waiting, sunlight from the hallway spilling behind them and outlining their figures in warm brightness.
I waved Valerie goodbye, telling her I'd head ahead, before hurrying toward the door. My stomach growled as I walked, twisting in anticipation.
It was time to fill my rumbling stomach to the brim with amazing food.
Finally.