Last words from Karin Brynard

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turtle doves Perhaps one shouldn’t delve into the causes of everyday irritations, Karin Brynard muses. You may just stir up a nastier nest of maladies. It’s five o’clock in the morning – the day is yet a distant promise – and I wake up with murder on my mind.

I need a slingshot. No, a gun. And it doesn’t have to be a small one either. A cannon will do just fine. Anything with a bang loud enough to blast an annoying bird to kingdom come. The male turtle doves in my tree-lined neighbourhood wake up at 5am – especially the one in the tree below my bedroom window, who instantly needs to broadcast the fact far and wide. With unrelenting urgency. At the same, monotonous pitch. Top volume. All day long.

He can keep it up for a full 12 minutes (yes, I have timed him), pausing briefly only to gather spit for the next volley. On cue, another male about three trees down joins in. Two-and-a-half trees on, there’s a third. I pile pillows onto my head, close the bedroom windows, turn on the radio. But that insistent little trumpet cuts through everything. In the end, I have to go outside and physically chase him away.

And he doesn’t go easily. No clapping of hands, no shouting or arm-flailing will make him skedaddle. At best, he will hop to another branch, cocking his head and fixing you with a condescending stare, as if you’re the one who’s cuckoo. And promptly start all over again.

Would a really loud bang do the trick, I wonder. In the absence of a shotgun, I have found that a book does the job rather nicely. Two books, in fact. You smack a sturdy hardcover, preferably a coffee table book, with a big fat paperback and boom! You have your cannon. Elena Ferrante is ideal for the soft cover. I keep a copy of The Story of the Lost Child along with a picture book of Rembrandt’s etchings near the front door. Smash those two babies together and you may as well fire an elephant gun. Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend is at the ready at the back door along with a book on the grass species of the Kalahari. Whenever that scoundrel starts his cacophony, I charge outside and blast him with the heavy artillery of b(l)ooming good literature. And Ferrante is a blast, both as writer and bazooka. Not that Mister Streptopelia capicola, aka the common Cape turtle dove, is defeated easily. He’ll flutter off with a snort, settling in another tree until my arms are whacked. Upon which, he coolly returns. But I’m something of a diehard myself. Doesn’t matter where I am in the house, when I hear him, I crack my literary thunder. He strikes back: try harrrder, try harrrder, he calls.

I turn to the internet for advice on pesky pigeons, and make a nasty discovery: there’s a chance that the problem lies with me. Imagine. Yes, the ever-wise World Wide Web declares, people with a serious intolerance for certain sounds may have a condition called misophonia, often caused by stress and anxiety. Yeah right, I think. The angel Gabriel would develop stress and anxiety if there was a randy dove outside his bedroom window. But it could also be a brain tumour, I continue reading. Or a head injury. Oh, for heaven’s sake, I think, annoyed. I’m not the dysfunctional one!

But the internet insists: if certain sounds drive you crazy, that’s what you have – misophonia. Do you become irate at the sound of someone slurping their coffee? Of clattering keyboards? Cellphone clicks or rustling candy wrappers? You’ve got it. The incessant buzzing of the cicada? Oh, boy. I keep broomsticks near the trees in the yard where these long-winded scoundrels sit shrilling all day long. At the end of my tether, I rattle the branches with the broomsticks. And it works. The critters put a sock in it straightaway!

I surf the internet for more information. People with this “syndrome”, it is claimed, become emotionally disturbed and even aggressive when they hear certain “ordinary” sounds, such as chewing and swallowing, or coughing, sniffing, fingers drumming or… yes, repetitive animal sounds.

And the remedy? Sound distraction is one view. Turning on the radio, for example. What rubbish. I keep scrolling. Psychotherapy, opines another.

Take a flying leap, I decide and turn off the computer. It isn’t me. It’s the blasted bird. Don’t you think? Of cannons and Illustration Paula Dubois • Translation Annelize Visser