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I’ve noticed it before, but I’ve never really paid much attention to it: New York City, or at least Manhattan, has a sort of faint rumbling sound that always exists in the background, even at night. It’s similar to the sound of a far off water fall echoing off the walls in a canyon.
You can hear the occasional horn, siren, drunken shout, or the engine of some motorcycle rider who thinks its cool to go really fast over the bridge, but the rumbling noise is always there behind them all. I’m not sure what it is. It could be the sound of a million automobile engines resonating through the city, the sound of the vast network of underground stuff that keeps the city moving, or the sound of a million voices all talking at once at any hour of the day.
I’m sure every city has its own unique sound if you listen hard enough, but I think New York may be one of the few cities that are large enough and have the right geometry to make that sound audible. The tall, flat building faces are probably what carries the sound from place to place. The sound is fainter in the middle of Central Park, and you can’t even hear it in parts of the outer boroughs.
Maybe the city is alive, and the rumbling noise is the sound of its breath. In that case, some people would say it’s a stone and steel vampire sucking the life out of people.
Despite some of the stories I write, I don’t go in much for fantasy.