Let the Great World Spin

by Colum McCann

We seldom know what we’re hearing when we hear something for the first time, but one thing is certain: we hear it as we will never hear it again. We return to the moment to experience it, I suppose, but we can never really find it, only its memory, the faintest imprint of what it really was, what it meant.

instead she’s out of the kitchen and into the living room and across the carpet, with the water.

—Just wondering if there’s anybody

woman’s breath on the air. The clock. The fan.

Brown is momentarily taken aback—the