What had it been like to be eleven years old? Twelve? If she couldn’t sleep, her father would pile together a nest of old blankets in the middle of the sound pit. She’d curl into the nest, and he’d extinguish the lights. In that soundless, lightless place he could delete the whole world. Then slowly he’d construct a new world around her. Seated at the mixing console he’d create the sound of wind. He’d add the crackle of logs in a fireplace. The sonorous ticktock of an antique clock. The rattle of a loose pane in a leaded-glass window. Her father would build a castle around her and place her in
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