Eventually, we overcome our thirst and search until there’s no more words, no more languages, grunts, cries, whines, screams, dialects or whimpers, so that the only silence we hear is ourselves not breathing. The last thing, after feeling our heart pump its final liters of blood, is the ache our fingers feel from writing what’s never been of interest to anyone else. Writing about a donkey’s well-fed belly swelling like a gray-haired moon. Or a muddy white horse scratching its neck against a weathered fence rail imagined as a rain cloud hanging in a marsh of dead trees. Or being mesmerized by the frantic cries baby ducks peep while scrambling aboard their mother’s back on their first outing over rough lake waves. Or imitating the honks of territorial geese chasing goats beside whom they somehow end up resting in the warmth of afternoon’s sunlit grasses. Still, it’s unfortunate that nothing’s any longer important or heard. It’s unfortunate how headphones, ear plugs, or cell phones block with their insatiable and nonsensical chatter, their deep bass-driven music, the very silence we lose by not listening for it. We’ve often offered help to others who

wanted to regain and honor this silence, but after so many attempts to meet on such and such a date, we’re the only ones who ever show up. We imagine that once the noise level starts peaking again, it won’t be long before excessive demand from the masses for more silence in their lives will make it impossible to hear what anyone has to say.