Deep C

It was a hot day, I was on my way back from Spar, carrying a bag of groceries. I walked past the lilac bushes in bloom, past the annex to the medical centre with its small car park, rounding my house. From the side of the old red-brick typography building I heard an incomprehensible sound, like a tuba from underwater, the sound was muffled, even and deep. I immediately identified a C minor chord. Prolonged, devoid of modulation, the sound lingered in space as I walked across the ramp past the lilac bushes. It was impossible to make out exactly what it sounded like. As if from behind, there was some tenor sound in the background, but it was so faint that I could barely hear it. No one sat on the benches at the entrance to the house. The sun-drenched ramp area, the faded walls of the house, the bright blue sky. I went up to my flat, and went out onto the balcony. From the balcony I could hear nothing, there was the dead silence of a summer day. It's evening now, I'm writing this worthless story, but I can't get over the fact that I couldn't identify the source of the sound or its purpose. The only thing I could make out was an evenly sustained, deep C minor chord.