Correspondence Regarding Traffic Horn Adaptation
The traffic has been there every night. One horn at 1:34am was different, and now there is no going back.
To: The Traffic From: The Person Who Has Been Living Above You For Two Years Re: The Horn at 1:34am on July 31
This correspondence is written in full acknowledgment that you will not read it.
The matter concerns a horn that occurred last night at approximately 1:34am. Not the usual horns. This office has fully adapted to the usual horns. The usual horns are the city's background score and have been processed as such since approximately the third week of residence. They are as audible as weather.
The 1:34am horn was different.
Steady traffic noise fades into the background until one unusual horn pattern pulls full attention back to the street. This office was asleep. The horn in question was either longer than usual, or higher in pitch, or followed by a pause that suggested it was waiting for something. This office cannot determine which, because this office was not fully conscious when it happened.
What is documented is the result: full wakefulness at 1:34am, with attention directed toward the window.
The listener adapts to the sound and then becomes sensitive to the smallest deviation. This adaptation has served well until now. The street sounds like the street. The street is always the street. Except when the street makes a sound that is not quite the street, at which point the entire classification system is briefly suspended and the person must reassess.
The 1:34am horn required approximately eight minutes of reassessment.
Eventually the person can describe a background pattern they never intended to learn. This correspondence confirms that the following sounds are now known to this office: the 11pm delivery motorbike that idles before a turn, the specific frequency of the traffic light's stopping traffic, the gap in sound around 3am.
None of this was sought. The pattern installed itself.
The person sleeps through traffic but wakes for one strange horn.
The traffic was normal again by 1:42am. Sleep resumed at approximately 1:58am.
This letter requires no response.
Sincerely, The Person in the Third Floor Apartment