Static

White noise

I despise the sound of static. The vast emptiness of its white noise is heavily unsettling to me. Ever since I was a child, hearing it is synonymous with hearing the toll of death's bell. This is because every time I've heard it, something horrific has happened in its stead.
When I was seven or eight, my boombox suddenly stopped playing music and began emitting that scratchy hiss. I had to hold my hands over my ears before shutting it off. An hour later, we got the call that my uncle had been in a terrible car accident. He didn't survive. A flatbed that had been driving in front of him, transporting large sheets of glass, had swerved and one of the sheets flew through my uncle's windshield. He'd been decapitated, dying instantly.
Six months later, I was perusing around the market with my mother. While she occupied herself in the produce aisle, I strayed toward the large television at the front of the store. At the time, it was playing Barney and Friends. I hadn't seen it in a while, and having still been a child at the time, it was one of my favorite shows. A couple of other children joined me and all of us happily stared at that giant purple dinosaur for what seemed like hours. Out of nowhere, the show suddenly stopped and all it left was a peppery blanket of static. The other children merely slinked away, disappointed that the television seemed to have broken. I, however, clamped my hands over my ears and rushed around the store trying to find my mother.
I thrust my hand into hers when I found her at the checkout. She looked down and smiled, but her smile faltered into concern when she saw my look of discontent. I did not want to go home. I had a sudden fear of the answering machine. What would it say? The incident with my uncle left an impact. In a child's mind, association is common. From that day I'd associated the sound of white noise with the coming of doom. I knew it was going to happen again. I was right.