I found Hana behind the post office again, watering the plants she always forgot during the day.
The sun had already dropped, but the heat clung to everything—metal railings, glass windows, skin.
Even the water coming out of the hose felt warm.
"You didn't sleep," she said.
"I tried."
"Try harder next time."
She smiled, but it didn't last. I handed her the folded newspaper.
"You remember Manit?"
Her eyes flicked down to the headline, then up to me.
"From the tower? Of course."
"He's been dead 4 day's prior."
She didn't flinch. "And you saw him?"
"I talked to him."
That was Hana. No disbelief, no jokes—just quiet acceptance, like hearing about the weather.
"Then maybe he wanted to tell you something," she said, and kept watering.
We played the tape right there in the alley behind the post office.
The air smelled like wet cement and fried bananas from the corner stand.
Static filled the small speaker, soft as breathing.
Then came a faint voice—low, careful, almost polite.
"See you around."
It didn't sound like him exactly, but close enough that my stomach tightened.
"Probably wind," Hana said.
"In a sealed room?"
"Then the ghosts have better ventilation than we do."
I laughed, a little too loudly.
She tilted her head. "You should show me where you met him."
The road to the canal shimmered under streetlights, puddles mirroring the wires above.
By day, the kiosk there sold cigarettes and bottled tea; by night it looked like a photograph left in the sun too long.
We stood by the bench where Manit had been.
"Here?" she asked.
"Here."
She crouched by the water, tracing its skin with her fingertips.
The surface rippled outward in perfect circles.
"Feels like it's waiting," she said.
"For what?"
She smiled at the question. "For someone to listen."
We let the recorder run.
Ten minutes of heat, wind, distant traffic, and nothing else.
When the reel clicked, Hana stopped it and rewound a few seconds.
The playback came through clearer than expected—no voice, just a low vibration that pulsed like breath.
"Residual energy," she said. "Common near power lines."
"Maybe it's just the tower bleeding through."
She nodded, though I wasn't sure either of us believed it.
At her apartment later, she played it again.
Her speakers were small, cheap, the kind that buzz when you turn the volume past halfway.
The hum stayed constant, but if you listened long enough, it seemed to shape itself—almost like words trying to remember their order.
Neither of us spoke.
Finally she said, "You know, ghosts might not be people. They might just be noise that learned how to wait."
I said that was poetic.
She said that wasn't a compliment.
Two nights later she called.
"I found something," she said. "A fire near Kamphaeng Saen. One survivor, one missing woman."
"Related to Manit?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. It's close enough to check."
We rode out after sunset.
The road narrowed to dirt; the air smelled of sugarcane and rust.
Crickets droned until the motorbike stopped—then silence.
The house stood ahead of us, more skeleton than structure.
Half a roof, blackened walls, weeds pushing through the floor.
The air tasted of smoke that had forgotten how to fade.
Hana brushed ash from a rusted mailbox.
The paint was gone, just the faint outline of letters.
"Looks like someone's name," she said.
I didn't answer.
The air already felt heavy enough without another word.
She straightened, wiping her palms on her jeans.
"You think anyone still lives out here?"
"Not anyone we can interview."
That made her laugh—a small sound that almost didn't belong in the world.
We stepped inside for a moment.
The boards sighed underfoot.
Something in the corner crackled, soft, like a match that couldn't decide if it wanted to burn.
I clicked on the recorder, set it down.
Hana murmured a short prayer in Thai, the kind meant for travelers rather than the dead.
When she finished, she said, "Feels wrong to talk loud here."
I agreed.
So we didn't.
The tape caught nothing unusual—just our breathing and the quiet settling of ash.
When we played it back at the gate, the hum returned, steadier this time, like it had been waiting for our attention.
Hana said, "Could be a power surge."
"Could be," I said.
We packed up and left.
The road home was darker than before.
No crickets.
No lights.
Just the feeling that the world was holding its breath, listening to the same hum we were.
We didn't talk much afterward.
Our notes filled with half-sentences and coordinates that led nowhere.
It wasn't that we were losing interest—it was that the sound followed us home.
At night, when I closed my eyes, I could still hear the tower humming behind my heartbeat.
It wasn't loud, just constant, like a reminder that silence is never really empty.
(End of Chapter 2 — "The Quiet Case")