Rain whispered on concrete. I remember looking back but people were carving around me to cross the road and after a moment I hurried with them, ears buzzing with that old instinct we all share for the sound of our own name. I scanned the other side of the street. Wind ruffled my coat, it pulled at my tie. Nobody was waving. I knew I'd heard it, though.
Lightning winked like the flash of a giant's camera. I had started walking but flinched when the thunder came. It cackled down out of a sky dead with clouds. Digging my neck into the collar of my coat I hurried on.
When it came again its bluster shook the window of my office. My mind snapped into focus and I stared out through glass black with night. Relaxing back into my hunch I glanced down at what I'd written. My throat tightened. It was gibberish; not even English. I'd been listening to the sigh of my pen on paper.
In the hall beyond my door shoes murmured over carpet, the same shuffling phrase over and over. Had it always been there? Had my brain just been worn deaf to it, like repeating a word until it loses meaning? What had my infant ears heard when leaves rustled in the trees?
Her fork scraped alien syllables out of the china. I couldn't eat. Food filled my mouth with elided meaning, potatoes and basil leaves scrunching out chaotic language inside my skull. Even my teeth were chattering. Looking over at me she raised an eyebrow, that honest smirk dimpling her cheek, but when she spoke I didn't hear. I was listening to the writhing of her lips.
Outside thunder chuckled. Rain whispered, it whispered on the windows.
