Silent Hum

Personal update: In the last year, I have written 25 original stories, published one glittery collection, and grown Silver Cord Stories to an audience of over 1,000 followers scattered across 39 countries. Thank you for being one of them.

The vision here remains the same: to make readers laugh and stir their soul. Some stories lean more in one direction than the other, but isn’t that how life works too?

As we settle into 2026, I’m tuning my antenna slightly more toward stories that have a cinematic quality and, with any luck, a life beyond Substack. That was hopefully apparent with December’s “Starstruck.”

With that in mind, please enjoy my latest, a story about a heavy metal icon and his fall from grace. Or is it the other way around?

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Pierce Darkly had a string of smash albums between 2008 and 2014. Platinum-selling triumphs like “Meat Slicer,” “Blood Donor,” and “Kill My Sister,” most notably. But it had been ten years since the band had released any new material. Sure, the record label put out a few live albums and an EP of unreleased tracks, but for all intents and purposes, the four original members of the popular death metal band, now in their thirties, were coasting off greatest hits.

For six months a year, those hits filled an eighty-minute set that allowed Pierce (lead singer), Levi (lead guitar), Dray (bass), and Scab (drums) to leech off the disposable income and thirst for nostalgia of their fan base, a dependable combination that would likely carry them into their early fifties and the premature deaths that went hand in hand with being overindulgent rock stars.

But everything changed at the Chumash Indian casino.

It had been a fairly typical set, filled with a perfect mix of screaming, thrusting, and shredding, but when Pierce retreated to the tour bus with a cocktail waitress, he realized he could barely hear her while she told him the stories behind each of her sixty-three tattoos. It wasn’t that Pierce was going deaf. The problem was that his ability to hear was being drowned out by a deeper tone he couldn’t escape.

The next morning, the waitress was gone but the sound remained. As their tour rolled south toward Los Angeles, the un-diagnosed issue quickly made itself known in the band’s performances. Pierce started missing cues. He struggled to modulate his volume from verse to chorus. As he tried to break out his trademark “demon voice,” fans began to grumble that it didn’t have the same ferocity that had gotten Pierce Darkly CDs banned from Walmart in 2010.

Levi, Dray, and Scab cornered Pierce in his dressing room at The Wiltern.

“Are you dying?” Scab asked.

If so, it wouldn’t be the first time. Each of them had dramatic brushes with death over the years, not to mention multiple rounds of every STD known to the Western world plus a few more that doctors couldn’t categorize.

“It’s just my hearing,” Pierce admitted.

Levi fell into a stained leather couch. Dray punched out a light bulb with his fist. “JUST your hearing?!” he said. Dray had just bought a top-of-the-line wakeboarding boat and expected to pay it off with the money he’d make on the rest of the tour.

After a flurry of texts, Pierce’s manager/ex-wife Ava secured him a last-minute hearing appointment at UCLA. The audiologist, a one-time Pierce Darkly fan who pretended like she didn’t recognize his trademark pitchfork tattoo running from the bottom of his neck to just under his chin, led him to a quiet room and gave him a battery of tests. Before she delivered her findings, she led him through a series of simple yes/no questions.

Audiologist: “Have you ever had prolonged exposure to loud sounds?”

Pierce: “Yes.”

Audiologist: “Have you ever repeatedly banged your head, putting undo strain on your head and/or neck?”

Pierce: “Yes.”

Audiologist: “Are you now or have you in the past taken high doses of antibiotics or anti-inflammatory prescription drugs?”

Pierce: “Yes.”

Audiologist: “Are you now or have you in the past been addicted to recreational drugs?”

Pierce: “Yes.”

She nodded gently then put down her pen. “Mr. Darkly, considering your history, your hearing is remarkably strong,” she said. “But what you are fighting is a fairly severe case of tinnitus.”

Pierce was relieved. “So how do we get rid of it?”

The audiologist flattened the folds of her scrubs on her thighs, subconsciously trying to make something right before sharing something she couldn’t. “Unfortunately, tinnitus isn’t curable,” she said, staring into his sad blue eyes. “There are treatments that can help, and we can talk about that. But for most people, the best response is to just learn to live with it. The more you accept tinnitus as part of your daily life, the less it will consume your thoughts and allow you to move forward into your new normal.”

She then handed him a pamphlet. On the cover was a grinning, middle-aged man in khaki shorts and white sneakers riding a bike through a park next to his grey-haired wife. The image bore no resemblance to any part of Pierce’s existence. He didn’t want to ride bikes. Or be married to a woman turning gray. He wanted to play for packed crowds. He wanted to see audiences stare up at him in awe. He wanted to rock.

But there was nothing in the pamphlet about that. As he leafed through it in the tomb-like silence of the testing room, he actually sensed his tinnitus growing louder.

The band paused the tour to give Pierce a chance to try some treatment options. Back in the comfort of his Santa Barbara hillside home, Pierce installed white noise machines in every room. He started cognitive behavior therapy to deal with negative thoughts and improve his sleep. He went cold turkey on his daily cocktail of medications. Surely this would alleviate the noise in his ears.

When Ava popped in a week later with groceries, she was hoping to find him on the mend or, at the very least, at peace.

“It’s worse than ever,” he said as he met her at the front door. Pierce was barefoot, wearing baggy exercise shorts and a white wife-beater. He looked like hadn’t slept since his appointment at UCLA, which was largely the case. A frantic “whoosh-whoosh-whoosh…” poured from every corner of the house. Ava felt like she was standing at the entrance to a demented womb and wanted to run.

But as both ex-wife and manager, Ava was doubly incentivized to see him restored to his previous income-earning self. “Did you stop all your medications?”

“WHAT?” Pierce yelled.

“DID YOU STOP YOUR MEDICATIONS?”

“YES!”

Pierce turned and shuffled toward the sunken living room. He was only thirty-three but was walking with the stiffness of a man twice his age. Ava watched as he fell face first onto his couch and covered his head with a pillow. “I think I’d rather just die,” he said with a muffled voice.

Ava sat next to him and rubbed his pale legs. Their marriage lasted three years and had been filled with fireworks and romance and drama and too much chaos for one woman to handle, but she still felt sad seeing a man she once loved so miserable. “WHAT DOES IT SOUND LIKE?” she asked.

Pierce moved the pillow so his mouth was exposed. “It started off like a low hum. But then it got louder. Like an amp that was turned up. Then I got off my meds and it only made it weirder.”

“WEIRDER?”

“Changing… evolving… I don’t know.”

“EVOLVING? LIKE FROM DAY TO DAY?”

“No. Second to second. It goes from a baaaa to a buuuu to a riiiiii to a waaaaaa…”

“THAT SOUNDS PSYCHOTIC, PIERCE,” she said.

He didn’t answer. He merely retreated back into his pillow.

Ava knew there was no way she could solve this from the confines of Pierce’s madhouse. “I’m going to call some specialists.” He didn’t move. “I’LL BE BACK IN THE MORNING,” she screamed.

Pierce stayed curled up on the couch as she left. He was angry. Yes, the sounds were debilitating and destabilizing. But “psychotic”? No. The more they repeated, the more they sounded, to his trained musical ear, melodic.

Pierce lowered the pillow from his face and looked across the living room to the black Yamaha grand piano in the corner. He rolled off the couch and crawled on all fours, over the bearskin rug, and up to the leather piano bench. Still on his knees, he closed his eyes and listened, then searched the keys until he found the note that matched the first sound in his head. Middle E. When he had it, he moved to the second. D. Then the third. C. Then the fourth.

He quickly had a whole melody. And as his head continued to cycle through it over and over, he played along with his fingers. With each pass, he added a chord here and a chord there. Then a little flourish. Going softer in some sections and louder in others. Pierce’s inner noise had broken free and was filling his outer world. He was so caught up in the whole experience that he didn’t realize what was happening: Pierce Darkly was writing his first song in a decade.

He stayed up all night, not because he couldn’t sleep but because he didn’t want to. By 3am, the music was locked, and then came the lyrics. It was as if a silver key in a rusty lock had been turned and a heavy door pulled open and out of it flowed a river of words. He wrote furiously, scribbling them in Sharpie on the back of his medical report from UCLA.

When darkness gave way to the rising sun, the song was finished. But that wasn’t the most miraculous part. The most miraculous part was that Pierce’s tinnitus was gone.

Pierce went from room to room, unplugging his white noise machines, then summoned the band along with Ava. They arrived by lunch and he excitedly ushered them to his couch. “Everyone, sit!” They could sense his new energy. “You back on coke?” Scab asked, a little hopeful.

“I’m not on anything!” Pierce said. “Just listen!” Then Pierce sat at the piano and played. Three minutes later, without missing a note, he swiveled around on the bench and faced the others, expectant.

“What the f*** was that?” Dray asked.

“I wrote a new song!” Pierce said. “Last night. It just came to me! And when I was done, the ringing was gone. I’m healed!”

Levi’s brow was furrowed. “What chords were those?”

“Oh, um…” Pierce looked back at his scribbles. “E… C… F…”

“Major chords,” Levi noted.

Pierce hadn’t thought about it. “Okay. Yeah. So what?”

Scab stood up, livid. “That’s a f****** happy song!”

“It is?” Pierce said.

“Hell yes,” Scab said. “We don’t play happy songs!”

Pierce knew it was a departure from their normal music, but he had already worked out the arrangement and felt it might make for a nice interlude halfway through their set. “I was thinking maybe we could play it between ‘Roadkill’ and ‘Blood Splatter’?”

“ARE YOU F****** CRAZY?!” Dray said before kicking over a chair.

Pierce looked to Ava, sitting silent on the end of the couch. “What do you think?” he said.

“I actually… like the song,” Ava confessed. “It’s thoughtful.”

“PIERCE DARKLY DOESN’T DO ‘THOUGHTFUL’!” Dray screamed as he kicked over another chair.

This was obviously not the reaction Pierce wanted. Maybe they were right. Maybe the song was wrong. But even thinking it felt like a betrayal of his experience. Of his healing. “If our fans hate it, I won’t play it again.”

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Their first concert back was at the Orange County Fair. An outdoor summer gig. The band hoped the combination of alcohol and heat would make their fans quickly forget this creative detour. They also made Pierce bury the new song in the set list, slipping it in discreetly on the heels of “Hell Bitch,” “Cannibal Breath,” and “Sick Magnet,” three of their bigger hits.

“So this is a new one,” Pierce said. The drunk and dehydrated crowd cheered. “It’s called ‘Silent Hum.’” Then Pierce closed his eyes, leaned close to the microphone, and began to sing:

What would you say if I… turned away… and forgot your name?

What would you do if I… left you too… and erased your face?

Would you haunt my dreams?

Would you break my heart?

Would you disappear?

Would you fall apart?

Or would you… come?

In a silent hum?

In a silent hum.

Would you come?

Levi, Dray, and Scab played their parts with little enthusiasm. Their mediocre effort only succeeded in making the song more intimate, not less.

Where do I go when I… just don’t know… what I’m meant to do?

What do I say when my… soul won’t pray… and the words aren’t there?

When I’m all alone.

When I’m scared as hell.

When I’m breaking down.

When no one can tell.

Would you come?

In a silent hum?

In a silent hum.

Would you come?

With your silent hum, would you fill me up?

With your silent hum, would you break me free?

With your silent hum, would you make me me?

With your silent hum.

With your silent hum.

With your silent hum.

Pierce opened his eyes to a mostly confused crowd. The scattered applause was balanced by a few boos and a loud voice that yelled, “PLAY SOMETHING LOUD!”

Levi didn’t wait for permission. He jumped straight to the opening power chord of “Suck On This,” their #1 single from 2012. The crowd roared, the awkwardness dissipated, and Pierce let himself be engulfed in a fresh billow of smoke from the fog machine.

No one talked about “Silent Hum” after the show. Better to forget it ever happened and move on. This proved easy enough to do since they had a packed schedule after the tour’s two-week pause.

They played Palm Springs, then went north to Victorville, followed by three sold out nights in Vegas at the MGM Grand. Dray was feeling much better about his boat purchase when Ava found the band spiking their hair and preparing to take the stage.

“I have some good news,” she said. But she didn’t look happy. “Pierce Darkly is back on the Billboard charts.” They were stunned. Some of their greatest hits had popped a time or two in the last decade, but they never scared the top-100. “Which one?” Levi asked.

“‘Silent Hum,’” she said.

“That’s impossible,” Pierce said. “We never released it. We never even recorded it!”

“I know. But someone took your live version and put it out there,” she said.

Scab was already searching on his phone. “I don’t see that s*** song anywhere.”

Ava cleared her throat. “Yeah, I was getting to that. It’s trending as a, um, worship song.”

“What the f*** is a worship song?” Dray asked.

“I think that means they play it on aircraft carriers or something,” Scab said.

“Not warship,” Ava said. “Worship. Like a gospel song.”

“But for white people,” Levi added.

“You mean churchy s***?” Scab said.

“Yes,” Ava nodded.

Scab turned his ire on Pierce. “You a***hole,” Scab declared.

“I didn’t do anything!” Pierce said.

“Yeah, you did.” Dray moved toward Pierce, rage in his eyes. “Writing a Christian song is even WORSE than writing a bad song!”

Pierce took a step back. “BUT I’M AN ATHEIST!”

America didn’t seem to care about that fact. Neither did the band. With a giant swing, Dray punched Pierce in the neck and sent him flying backwards over a riser, through the curtain, and onto the stage. Before Pierce could get up, Dray was on top of him. Fans cheered at the “pre-show” their favorite bad boys were giving them.

Pierce and Dray rolled into Scab’s drum kit, knocking it over. Dray grabbed a cymbal and was about to drop it like a guillotine onto Pierce’s head when Pierce reached for Levi’s guitar and swung it, sweeping Dray’s feet out from under him.

“Hands off my axe!” Levi yelled, bolting onstage to try and wrestle it away.

When Pierce wouldn’t let go, Scab joined them and kicked Pierce in the side with his metal-tipped boots until the lead singer relented, leaving the band’s front man with two broken ribs and a night at the University Medical Center.

The only one who came to visit Pierce in the hospital was Ava. “The Venetian pulled your gigs,” she said. “And the band wants you out.”

“They can’t kick me out. I’m Pierce Darkly.”

“I checked on that,” Ava said. “Legally, you’re not. Legally, you’re just… Jeff Nudson.”

Pierce waved off his next dose of pain meds and left the hospital on his own volition, booking a one-way flight back to Santa Barbara. From his patio, he sat and watched the Channel Islands as the setting sun turned them from green to blue to black. The world beneath him offering nothing but beauty and indifference.

Meanwhile, “Silent Hum” continued its rise up the charts. Every few days, Ava texted and begged him to do a studio recording. Pierce couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was scared of further embracing the mystery of whatever that song had tapped into. No, he was perfectly content just sitting on his patio, ordering UberEats, and watching whatever was left of his life roll by.

Or he was until the Vatican called.

Lured by the +39 international number, Pierce hit the green button on his phone and found a man with a genteel Italian accent on the other end. “Hello, Mister Darkly, this is Father Andrea Bianchi calling from the pontiff’s office. The Holy Father has requested your presence. He would like to hear you play your new song.”

“The Holy Father,” Pierce said.

“Yes, Mister Darkly.”

“As in… the Pope?”

“Yes, Mister Darkly.”

“Who is this?” Pierce scoffed.

“This is Father Andrea Bianchi from the—”

“Yeah yeah, hey listen. Let your Pope know I’m retired and I don’t believe in God.” Pierce hung up and laughed. A minute later, Ava called.

“You hung up on the Vatican?!” she said.

“That was a prank call,” Pierce said.

“That was not! The Pope heard ‘Silent Hum’ and found it quite moving and wants you to come play it for him.”

Pierce still didn’t believe her. And even if he did, “What if I don’t want to play?”

“YOU DO NOT TURN DOWN THE POPE, PIERCE!”

Pierce and Ava flew to Rome three weeks later. His black suit, black shirt, and black tie matched the tinted car that picked them up at the hotel. They drove past the tall Vatican City walls, across St. Peter’s Square, and through a gate protected by a dozen Swiss Guards in Renaissance-era blue and yellow striped uniforms. When the car stopped, Father Bianchi himself opened Pierce’s door. “Welcome to Vatican City, Mister Darkly.”

Pierce and Ava followed the priest down a long, gilded hallway. Pierce began to sweat. The last time he performed solo was in high school. Ava grabbed Pierce’s hand and squeezed. “This is just like any other gig,” she assured him. After a few more turns, they climbed past a set of marble columns, through tall steel doors, and into the Sistine Chapel.

“Oh my God,” Pierce uttered. Even for an atheist, he knew where he was. His eyes climbed the fresco walls to Michelangelo’s ceiling where the finger of God reached from the heavens to touch man.

“Unfortunately, we could not fulfill your request for a microphone,” Father Bianchi apologized as he continued walking toward the altar. “Thankfully, the acoustics in the chapel are quite good.”

Pierce froze. A humble piano waited for him up front. “Wait a second. I’m singing in here?” he asked.

“I hope that’s all right,” Father Bianchi said. “That was the Holy Father’s request.”

“Oh my God,” Pierce repeated.

“I don’t think you should be saying that,” Ava whispered.

Father Bianchi beckoned Pierce toward the piano bench then moved a single chair into position fifteen feet away. As the priest excused himself, Pierce sat and waited.

His eyes were drawn to the altar wall in front of him and Michelangelo’s “Last Judgement.” Forty feet high and forty feet wide, it told the story of Christ’s second coming. As dozens of souls rise from the dead, some are pulled up into the heavens by a host of angels while others are dragged back down into hell by a legion of horned demons and snakes. Floating in the middle of it all, Jesus looks down as hopeful saints show him evidence of the torture and death suffered for his name in a last call for mercy.

“Oh my God…” Pierce whispered again.

Pierce was not in denial about the excesses of his life. He had tried everything and hurt too many people to count. Friends. Family. Women, especially. Girls, more accurately. Staring up, the fresco felt less like a work of art and more like a mirror, convicting him of every moment of hate and deception and pride and lust and greed. He knew that if that painting were accurate, even metaphorically, he would not be one of the ones going up. He would be going down.

“Here we are,” Father Bianchi said, returning to the room. Behind him, dressed in white, was the Pope.

Pierce stood as the Pope approached, then extended his tattooed hand. “Hello, Father,” he said. The Pope took his right hand and covered it with his left. “You’re very talented.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“When I heard your song, I knew it was from God. I could sense it. Breaking through darkness. And that was before I even knew your name.”

Pierce resisted the compliment. The last thing he wanted to do in this place was lie. “But Father, this song isn’t really about God. It’s about feeling loved.”

The Pope smiled. Nodded. “But my child… God is love.” Then he patted Pierce on the shoulder and took his seat.

Pierce was rattled. How could the Pope tell him what his own song was about? The Pope didn’t write it, he did!

Father Bianchi took his position behind the Pope and nodded toward Pierce. It was time.

Pierce sat at the piano. Pushing away his annoyance, he played the musical intro then sang the opening line:

What would you say…if I turned away… and forgot your name?

Pierce shot a glance to the pontiff as if to say “See? Clearly not about God.”

What would you do… if I left you too… and erased your face?

Again. A song about a relationship. Not about “piercing darkness.”

Would you haunt my dreams? Would you break my heart? Would you disappear? Would you fall apart? Or would you… come? In a silent hum?

Pierce eyed the man in white again, sure that by now he was hearing that this song had nothing to do with God at all and he had made an embarrassing error inviting him here to perform. But no, the Pope was smiling.

Pierce pushed on to the second verse.

Where do I go… when I just don’t know… what I’m meant to do?

Okay, Pierce heard a little bit of Jesus in that line. Fair enough.

What do I say… when my soul won’t pray… and the words aren’t there?

The moment Pierce sung it, everything stopped. His voice locked, like the door on the open vault in his head had been slammed shut. His fingers played the melody, over and over, waiting for his mouth to do its part, but it was frozen.

Pierce panicked as the fiction of his words became reality. Was it possible? Had he, sinner of sinners, really written a divinely-inspired song without even believing in the divine? And if he admitted that was possible, then wouldn’t he have to admit everything else?

Ava and Father Bianchi and the Pope blurred into the background. He stared up at the fresco again. At the angels grabbing for precious souls. Saving them from eternal death. All he wanted in that moment was for one of them to grab for him.

“Oh God,” he whispered.

Immediately, Pierce sensed a holy presence. Not from the Pope. Not from somewhere in the room. From deep inside his own soul. It filled his lungs like a rush of wind and burst forth, filling the chapel with his unintentional prayer.

When I’m all alone.

When I’m scared as hell.

When I’m breaking down.

When no one can tell.

Would you come.

In a silent hum.

In a silent hum.

Would you come?

With your silent hum, would you fill me up?

With your silent hum, would you break me free?

With your silent hum, would you make me me?

With your silent hum.

With your silent hum.

With your silent hum.

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Pierce and Ava had dinner in a piazza a few blocks from St. Peter’s Square. Over a bottle of red wine, Pierce failed in his attempt to put into words exactly what had happened during his performance. But Ava didn’t need an explanation. She felt it. She saw it. The man she fell in love with at nineteen looked visibly different. Transformed. Almost glowing.

“My only regret is that I never asked you to record it,” he said.

Ava held up her phone. “Come on, babe, give me some credit here.”

“You did?!”

Ava nodded and took a victorious sip.

Pierce laughed then looked at his ex-wife with fresh eyes. “You deserved someone better than me, Ava.”

“I know,” she said. Then, with a vulnerability that surprised even herself, “But maybe that person is you.”

Pierce reached across the table and took her hand. Ava waited for him to pull it away. He never did.

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