The History of Sound: Stories

by Ben Shattuck

I thought of him in the way you do when you’re young: in the mornings, lying in bed listening to the songbirds, sheets tangled around my legs; when I stood in the kitchen watching the kettle, waiting for it to boil; when I was pruning, grafting, staking, and guying the fruit trees; after work, walking to the streambed and listening to the spring peepers; sitting on our porch, listening to a thunderstorm clear its throat on the horizon in three notes, the smell of dirt released under the storm’s coming. As in, always. I sometimes woke with an impression of his face in my eyes, with my hand reaching across the bed for him.