Photo by tommao wang on Unsplash
by Kik Lodge
These scientifically approved bone conduction ears radically remove background noise such as squeaking, rumbles and rustling, or any self-help opinion voiced at Bryan Marsden’s house.
Their ergonomic design offers optimal auditory comfort, as well as a satisfying sensory experience when you compress them; much like a small human with squishmallows on either side of their cranium, soothing frayed nerves at school, or, eons on, at the office, the dinner table, in the street, the graveyard, where you go to mourn a father whose last words ring in your ears like tinnitus.
Thanks to a discrete lobe function, you can activate controlled environmental awareness. This means you can choose to let in the soft voice of Bryan Marsden’s girlfriend, Philippa, for example, when she leans over the soufflé, boobs on show, and tells you about her prize-winning turnip in the Garden Merit Award. Conversely, you can opt for complete isolation, a bubble-world exempt from urban drunks, panting graveyard joggers and opinions about how best to move on.
Endorsed by many leaders of the free world, these patented ears boast an advanced option which eradicates cognitive dissonance, allowing you to double down on your beliefs and convert sound waves into electrical impulses of your choosing; the ones that whisper father was a prick, Philippa is in love with you, that you’re better than her boyfriend by miles, that together you will silence the unmeasurable chaos.
Kik Lodge is a short fiction writer from Devon, England, but she lives in France with a menagerie of kids, cats and rabbit. Her work can be found in some lovely journals; The Citron Review, Bending Genres, trampset, Milk Candy Review, Splonk and Smokelong Quarterly, as well as the Best Microfiction 2024 anthology. Her debut flash collection, Scream If You Want To, is out with Alien Buddha Press and a second collection, The Bully in my Pillow, is forthcoming with Stanchion Books.
