While attempting to sculpt something artistic with packing peanuts, I noticed that the plastic* chips or S shapes seem to slightly tinkle and jingle** when tossed slightly in the cupped hand as if extracting change for a parking meter. The quiet dings and clings of suspended chips, freed of the palm’s
insulating influence, might help to calm a soul jarred by the sirens, motors, bells, wails and whistles of modern life.
The chips can be tied with black threads*** to the looped end of a nearly straightened, large paperclip anchored in an eraser base. Placed over the air vent of a computer or car or hung over the rising current of air on a lamp**** their soft chiming would attend the slightest zephyr*****.
* the polymer foam peanuts that melt on contact with rubber cement not the cellulose ones that crumple next to wood glue
** maybe more since I seem to lack some high frequencies of my hearing - gladly missing the whistling that occasionally visits our radiators – probably caused by military rifle practice with only barrel-cleaning patches as makeshift earplugs or an earlier childish bad habit of popping paper bags behind unsuspecting brothers
*** or filaments taken from the hairbrush of a long-haired lover or pet
**** or even super-glued to the nose of a bed partner with a vibrating soft palate as snore accompaniment, “Ssshkniikkt chink tinkle ping ssschlikkkt tinkle jingle ding”
***** of course a microphone-amplifier-speaker chip could be added to make a chip-enhanced chip chime that magnifies the delicate dongs all the better enjoyed above the daily din.