The Borborygmus
THE BORBORYGMUS
Borborygmus
You sneaky devil
You’re never seen
But you shake and rattle
What is that!?
I’d like to know
It’s Borborygmus
Putting on a show
You make all the sounds
That put me on edge
Like the strange whooshing noise
On the window ledge
Or that boom in the attic
Or a creak without reason
A rumble below
Or a wind out of season
You’re the snap in the walls
And the gossip of mice
Are you there in the halls
On dark, stormy nights?
Oh, Borborygmus
Please let me alone
I wanted some silence
Am I safe here at home?
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The pettiest of monsters, Borborygmus is still an unnerving spectral creature. Everyone has heard it in every home, shaking and rumbling through the walls, moaning and groaning in basements, stretching its creaky joints in attics, and quoting the wind on cloudless days.
Where did it come from and why does it stay? What was that sound?! Is somebody there?
The truth is that Borborygmus couldn’t exist if it weren’t for your parents. Every parent that ever existed gave a million, billion lives to Borborygmus. It’s a dream monster of endless refraction, brought into the world every time that any child wanted to go out and play and their parent said “no” because there were “more important things to do.” Suppressed joy needs an outlet and if the energy isn’t released and is forced to go to bed early, it turns into Borborygmus - the sound shadow specter.
Wherever there is light, there are shadows. The same is true for sound. Those bright sounds of laughter have a shadow of tears.
As you no doubt know, when a child laughs, they produce a happy harmonic. But when this vibrational wave is suppressed, the fundamental note is lost and only the somber overtones are left. All sound waves are energy, and when met with oscillations of parental interference, the texture of the sound changes. The soft curves become square waveforms like jack-o-lantern teeth. Unlike other waves, they don’t simply roll away - the harmonic wave equals sin A as the mean position stretches into the second order differential equation. It’s simple trigonometry. Furthermore, with being sound energy, the total of the isolated system becomes constant. It has to go somewhere, even if it has to stay inside and clean its room while other kids are catching frogs and climbing trees. Where do the lost sounds go?
These shadows, these echos of sounds that were never uttered, become Borborygmus of course. All those grumbling, creepy noises that come out of the woodwork are just the trapped displeasures of children come to life.
Borborygmus is harmless, but no one enjoys its discordant symphony. The only way to soften its voice and quiet its mood is to just let the children play.