I never knew one could measure the sound of screams until I dated a scientist. She worked in a
laboratory filled with machines and test tubes. She wore a white coat. The walls were white and so
were the work counters. That’s where she would stand holding a tube against a radioactive light
transmitter, so that she could test the hue of screams. Some were trapped in corridors from the
1800s. They were frantic gusts of sound, usually from prisoners being dragged to the guillotine.
They were brown due to their historical texture. Another group of screams were faint sounds
traversing over the Western Hemisphere after World War II. They traveled lightly on the backs of the
wind. They no longer held the impact of a loud cry for help but still carried the signature of a dying
soldier, like the imprint of an old ghost trapped in a glass jar. But the current screams filled up the
tubes. They were tarred black and the most potent according to the human sonic barometer. “Those
are death camp screams,” she said, “heard in the minds of firing squad victims.” “If they are heard in
the minds only, how did you sample them?” I asked. She said, “After the bullet entered their skulls,
their jaws were left open.”