I found myself in an office supply store after dark, dark coming early this time of year, mid-December. The plan was to purchase some take-out Chinese food around the corner for dinner, but first came this errand. I wandered the aisles, items large and small on shelves that occasionally flirted with the emptiness one might associate with bankruptcy. A palpable emptiness defined the place, a single floor taking up a substantial portion of a city block, yet nearly devoid of people. There were two other customers: one on his phone, the other standing in a corner saying “hello” repeatedly in hopes of earning the attention of the two present employees, one of whom was stationed at the register, the other also wandering the aisles. At times the five of us were spread out as if we had claimed some portion of the known territory as our own. The customer who wasn’t saying “hello” was on his phone narrating his day to someone else, what seemed to be a close friend. This customer apologized to the friend for having been “irrespective” of his interlocutor’s recent emails. I wandered over to what I came to understand was my corner of the store, from which I could barely hear the repeated hellos or the phone conversation, and in that emptiness a sound caught my ear — two sounds, in fact: a pair of repetitive clicks. I drew closer to several rows of hanging backpacks, all connected by lengthy cabling, and each affixed by a plastic alarm. I came to understand that this clicking was somehow the result of the shoplifting-prevention system. The clicks circumnavigated the modest gallery of backpacks, the pair of them running at ever so slightly different speeds, so they came in and out of phase with each other. In the background, amid the muffled sound of traffic and the rumble of the HVAC, you can just make out people talking, and as well as the sharp ping of a distant cash register.
Recorded at roughly 6:50pm in San Francisco’s Richmond District on Tuesday, December 16, 2025, on an iPhone 17 Pro using the standard Voice Memos app. Posted to Freesound and SoundCloud. This post is part of a collection of field recordings that last for roughly 30 seconds and are collectively titled #30s.