What's that noise?

There was a squeak, like plastic rubbing on plastic, like glass on styrofoam, like metal on glossy paint, like ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka-ee-ka as the Rolling Steel Tent rolled down the road. Probably not critical, but annoying as hell.

As I’ve written before, my partial hearing loss messes with my ability to locate sounds. Is it coming from behind me or from the right? Above my line of sight or below? Am I hearing it directly or is it reflecting off the wall? Then there’s the problem of the noise only happening while the van is in motion. I can’t drive and crawl around looking for the sound’s origin at the same time.

But something had changed very recently, causing the squeak. Something moved, or something wore down. I shuffled some things around. Was it the particular location of a water jug? Something in the door pocket? The contents of the fridge? The fridge against the insulation? A window not rolled all the way up? Was it the new stuff I’d built?

No luck. So I turned up the stereo to drown out the squeak.

Then, after about a week, it just stopped.

Something changed. Maybe it was the alignment of the planets. I don’t know. I probably never will. And some other noise will eventually take its place.