Earworm

by Cynthia Robinson Young

Part 1 appears in this issue.

conclusion

WEDNESDAY: Sandora

Time to go back home. Janelle is driving me to the airport, our conversation equivalent to a passenger and Uber driver. The ones that don’t talk. She insists on streaming Spotify during the ride, saying, “I can’t risk radio with their non-musical commercials!” I found a volume level loud enough to temper her headaches and low enough not to give me one.

“You really should see a doctor; this can’t be a normal thing that’s happening to you,” I suggested. “I feel horrible leaving you like this. Especially since you moved away from home, you’re all you’ve got down here for support.”

“I’ll be fine, just hard to focus with that song still stuck in my head. I just hate that I was the worst host ever to my best friend.”

“You know, I didn’t want to say anything, ’cause I know how you’re a borderline hypochondriac.”

I slowed to a stop at a red light. “But?”

“But I’ve been watching the news in my hotel room the past couple of days, and that restaurant we went to has been closed by the health department. Eight people that were there that night died. Unknown or undisclosed reasons. I can’t help but think there’s a link between all that and your headaches.”

“Did they have headaches? If it was food poisoning, we ate the same thing,” Janelle reasoned. “I don’t see how it’s connected. Did they mention the waiter?”

“They did, but again, no official cause of death.”

We pulled up to the Departures sign. Janelle popped the trunk. “I hope you don’t mind, but I have to stay in the car so I can listen to the music.”

Great seeing you, best friend.

FRIDAY: Janelle

“Alright, alright!” Sandora said, sounding a bit exasperated that the conversation, which was supposed to be a reassurance that she was home safely, had instead turned into yet another rant about the waiter and the mysterious song. “Enough with the song! You need to get out of that apartment. I’m glad you’re feeling better, take advantage of it!”

I wasn’t feeling better, but one of the things I remember Daddy telling me when he was alive was to always fake it till I make it. And I wasn’t about to see a doctor. It’s been five years, and I still blame the hospital for Daddy’s death. My mother was never told what happened. And if I did go, what would I say is the reason for my visit? Oh, I have headaches from silence and, by the way, do you know what this song is? I might as well accept what I cannot change and act like I live in a one-song musical.

“Okay, let me tell you about my first date with Wakeem. Spoiler alert: there’s a second planned for next Saturday.”

We laughed and talked like we used to, like we planned to when she told me she was coming to my town, before I got distracted by that song. Sandora didn’t need to know that after finding my old iPod Shuffle in the back of my nightstand, I was able to do normal things like work and talk to her on the phone while discreetly playing music in one ear. Headache problem solved, who needs a doctor?

It’s not ideal. Can’t properly focus with that ding-dang song bouncing off the walls in my brain. Yesterday I forgot to brush my teeth. Good thing Wakeem prefers texting during work. Baby steps...

NEXT SATURDAY: Wakeem

You can’t really decide how you feel about someone until the second date. First dates are more about what you’re doing, the second date is all about the connection. And what a connection. I feel like I’ve known Janelle forever, even though she’s a Jersey girl and I’m a California boy. And I thought I was addicted to music; this woman is ADDICTED TO MUSIC. I haven’t seen her without her ear pods the past couple weeks.

When we started comparing our musical leanings, we realized our top 10 shared a lot of the same artists. Except for one. Janelle was obsessed with one song in particular, so I asked her to sing it. She was nervous at first — she had second date jitters — but I applaud her effort. And it actually did sound close enough to recognize.

“Wait a minute! That song sounds familiar. What are the words again?”

I’ll crawl into your nightmares
I’ll squirm into your dreams
I want your heart
I want your mind
A love like mine is hard to find.

“Yeah, yeah. I remember that one. But that’s all I remember too! Now what song was that? And how did the rest go? Oh man, I got an earworm now!”

“An earworm?” Janelle was puzzled. “What’s an earworm?”

“You never heard of an earworm? That’s when a song gets in your head, and you can’t stop singing or thinking about it.”

“EXACTLY! Well, Wakeem? How do you get rid of it?” Janelle was excited for my knowledge drop, maybe even desperate.

“The only way to get it out of your head is to hear the whole song. Then you can move on.” I laughed at the intense absurdity of the conversation. “Thank god for streaming music services, I don’t know how people handled it before the Internet. It can drive a person crazy when it happens.”

SUNDAY: Janelle

It happened quickly. Wakeem was at my place the next night when the song took over every part of my brain. I hadn’t slept the night before, and I completely lost my appetite. He came over to check on me, but he was hobbled by a headache and proved to be just as helpless as I was. I called Sandora as a final lifeline. She said she would check flights and be back in town no later than tomorrow night. Best friends forever. Since birth.

MONDAY: Janelle

Wakeem was supposed to pick her up at the airport after he got off work, but he never showed. Sandora ended up calling an Uber. Where was Wakeem? I called, texted, and sent a message on WhatsApp: the trifecta of stalking. Nothing. He disappeared. No one wants a woman this high maintenance. I get it.

MONDAY NIGHT: Janelle

Sandora was there when I couldn’t take it anymore; the day I grabbed my sharpest knife because I needed something surgical to get the intense itching out of my ear, which I had rubbed raw.

She walked into the kitchen, saw my desperation, and pleaded, “Janelle, sing me that song again please? After thinking about it, I may know where you know it from.” I obliged her Hail Mary:

I’ll crawl into your nightmares
I’ll squirm into your dreams
I want your heart
I want your mind
A love like mine is hard to find.

Sandora’s eyes lit up. “I have heard that song before. You’re absolutely right. Middle school. Had to have been.”

I couldn’t take the suspense. “So? What is it then?”

But as quickly as Sandora remembered, she forgot. She knew these would be her final words to her best friend. “I... I can’t. I’m sorry, Janelle. I just don’t remember.”

At that exact moment, something snapped in my brain... last thing I remember, I was going down, the knife falling out of my twitching hand, Sandora screaming.

MONDAY NIGHT: Sandora

I called 911. I can’t describe what I saw in that kitchen to the paramedics, and definitely not to the police, at least not in a believable way. And I know enough about mysterious deaths from watching crime shows to think they might try to pin it on me. But I couldn’t just leave her on the kitchen floor with her ear like that. Should I even try to tell them about all those disgusting worms slithering out and then suddenly disappearing? Is this what Janelle was trying to tell me about that night at the restaurant? And I didn’t believe her. Why would anyone believe me now?

TWO WEEKS SATURDAY: Sandora

As far as funerals go, it was elegant and well-thought-out, just like Janelle was. It was the closure I needed, although I still looked over my shoulder, waiting for the police to bust in and arrest me as a suspect. Is that guilt? I spotted Janelle’s mother and went to pay my regards.

“Mrs. Baler, I’m so sorry,” I said while embracing my best friend’s mother. “I am so glad I was able to know her like I did.”

“Oh, Sandora baby, she loved you so much.”

“If there’s anything I can do, Mrs. Baler, please let me know.”

I gave one last squeeze before releasing her hold of Mrs. Baler. At that moment, something washed over me, and I had the urge to hum a tune.

Janelle’s mother froze, her facial expression was as if she saw a ghost. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“That song you just hummed. Do you know the lyrics?”

I’ll crawl into your nightmares
I’ll squirm into your dreams
I want your heart
I want your mind
A love like mine is hard to find.

How did I know the lyrics? What song was this?

Mrs. Baler slowly nodded her head in reticent approval. “I know I never told you how Janelle’s father passed. I even kept it from her. You know he was an aspiring music producer. It was the last song he recorded, the first one he insisted would be the song that would get his career started.

“But before he could get it sold, he started having these terrible migraines. Then, one day, he was found dead in the studio, with that song on repeat. The autopsy showed a hole from his ear to his brain, like an acid burn. Still no clue as to why, who, or how. But that song. I’ll randomly hear someone humming it, and I know they have no idea where it came from.”

A sharp pain just shot through my head. Here comes the itching...

“I need to hear it.”