15. Self-contained Current

Speech transcription: Below me, the red light was broken now. Fragmented as it divided itself between the numerous ripples made by the movement of my drowning toes. If I were tiny and in this water, I would have been tossed around by these ripples, moved by their self-contained current. I’d have heard them crashing like waves with a sound that would envelope my body and flood my mind before moving past me. This reminded me of ripples in sound waves, moving like an echo through tunnels; I was taken into the story of a book I read years ago.

Audio description: Chirping bug calls begin the clip. A low, bassy synth chimes at intervals, each time climbing and dropping in pitch slightly. Softly scraping metallic quality noise makes a figure 8 slowly at the straight edges then fast around the curves, repeating. Quiet dripping sounds come in, spatial and echoing like from a tunnel or cave, they carry throughout the clip. There is sometimes a sound of something heavier dropping that sounds slightly metallic like a coin dropping into a puddle. Speech begins. After ‘a book I read years ago’ is said, there is a squelching splash sound like someone stepping into a muddy puddle. The metallic figure 8 sound last then fades out after the speech. A throbbing, distorted sounding drone noise pulses and echoes, with each pulse there is also a quiet two-note hollow almost-popping sound straight after. The bassy synth from the beginning grows in again at intervals. The dripping becomes more metallic sounding and louder, sometimes there is the sound of movement through water like trying to walk in a deep puddle. The pulsing drone and synth fade out. Finally, there is an eerie, high pitch whistle synth in two tones descending and fading out. The metallic dripping fades lastly, ending the clip.