He hummed along, ever so quietly, to the minor-league industrial sound effect emitted by his PC tower, finding one of the frequencies and enjoying the mild sympathetic vibration that makes the molars vibrate. It's best when you can sustain the note for an extended period, though it's not as easy as it sounds---maintaining the tone is like standing on an icy fence rail, little slips this way and that, balance never more than a temporary achievement. It was as if the tone squirmed out from under his harmonized hum, as if what seemed like incessant monotone had a secret melody of its own, atonal and arrhythmic. He imagined it like a large cluster of ants that had overwhelmed a spill of sweet liquid, the insects packed so densely that the mass was simultaneously static yet undulating. He stared at the monitor, pretending to be pouring over impossibly complex spread sheets, his chin in hand, resonating the frequency through his hand and arm and into the table top so the entire cubicle seemed to be amplifying the white noise of the computer's cooling fans. Flat, then sharp, flat again, and then, for eight...nine...ten...eleven seconds, harmony. Happiness.

He cleared his throat and began again.