It starts as an indeterminate sound, I don’t even know how to describe it. But shortly after you get the high frequencies and you know it’s a plane. As it gets closer you hear the air start to tear apart, the echo all around the concrete canyons of the apartment complexes. Until finally, the bass rumble in your chest.
As it passes overhead, or even as it passes a suburb across, I can look out my window and see the planes. My bedroom window.
Then, as soon as it’s arrived, it’s gone again. Fading out into the distance and you’re left wondering, when will the next one come? Is that it, can I hear it? Or is it my imagination?
Sometimes, the next one will arrive immediately. You’ll have plane after plane after plane, a constant roar like the other morning starting at 6am. Sometimes there’s only a couple, like tonight.
A couple at midnight.
Again at 1am.
The 01:55 flight to Dubai.
No rhyme or reason.
I’m laying here trying to get to sleep, but my chest is just filled with anxiety. It’s a terrible sound. It’s a terrible thing to live with these machines flying across your home at all hours.
It’s terrible that someone made the decision to deliberately change the flight path.
There are tens of thousands of people living in this suburb, let alone all the others.
And I wonder how much the noise pollution is taking its toll on them. As it is me.