Call of the Night

Call of the Night

I heard a flock of geese, too late into the night, while I was in a bed of too many sheets. Then, there was sound of traffic in the distance, only heard when the city lets its trains rest. The cats weren’t fucking. That was a relief. It’s a howling of the wind kind of sound, the traffic sound. It’s the same sound as when you ride those spinning tea cups at a carnival and the sounds of the murmuring crowd, the methodical cranking of the Ferris wheel, a banjo somewhere, and that laugh that makes you shiver, all seem to fade in and out when you twist and spin. Or it sounds like when you’re riding your bike and you get caught behind a street cleaner. Or when you ride in the woods and you hear a plane overheard and you’re reminded that you’re never far from a city. Then you pass a woman, sitting on a stump, crying into her cordless and you wonder if on the other end of the line it’s just the sound of traffic hung in the night.