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Hear Horn

Use an ear horn to communicate by ear.
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Standing by the old man's bedside it was clear by the shallowness of his breathing and by the near flatness of his bedsheets that there was not much left of him.

Leaning down to say my final goodbye into the horn protuding from his ear I heard a faint beating. I stopped frozen on the spot and listened there closely to the intermittent rhythm. If finally stopped and I placed my hand over his heart.

His heart was still faintly beating. If not his heart, then what? The beating resumed and it produced a steady although unpredictable rhythm. The sound seemed to have no origin.

It wasn't long before the old man expired. The attending doctor removed the earhorn and inspected it. "This is not a typical earhorn", he said. "I had been using this device to communicate with the deceased in his final weeks, he had developed remarkable control over spasms of the inner ear and could send morse code signals with his tympanic membrane - these are amplified by the horn".

It's been several years since that day and earhorns have now advanced to the point that synthesized speech can be performed through the ear. Even though it's been so long and much has happened I can still remember that beating perfectly. Maybe I'll get around to learning morse code one day.

rcarty, Oct 12 2012

Some info on ear noises http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus
The person who owns the relevant eardrum will always hear something. I once read that sometimes others can hear something coming from that eardrum, also. I've never bothered to find out if it was true. [Vernon, Oct 13 2012]

Voluntary contraction of the tensor tympani muscle and its audiometric effects https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24289817/
[a1, Oct 29 2023]

[link]






       I dread to think as to where you would insert a foghorn.
skinflaps, Oct 12 2012
  

       Hmmm I don't know about tympanic membrane spasm control but I can open and close my eustachian tubes at will. It makes a sharp crackle of done quickly and a conch-shell-ocean sound when held open. Morse would be a cinch.   

       In a strange instance of reciprocity, there is a Dutch hearing aid which relays sound through a dental implant, for people with damage to their middle ear.
MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 13 2012
  

       If the "horn" had a paraboloid form resembling the Poisson distribution, would it make it possible to hear ringing in the ears?
8th of 7, Oct 13 2012
  

       This is definitely one of [rcarty]'s better works. [+]
pertinax, Oct 29 2023
  

       And best of all - it's true a true story. Or at least it could be. Some people can voluntarily work the tensor tympani muscle (link).
a1, Oct 29 2023
  
      
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