On the other side of the door, my father says he hears a noise that none of us have ever heard before. “It sounds like an energy beam is being fired at my head.” He tells us, pointing to the bridge of his nose. “What does that sound like?” my mother inquires. “It sounds like a mix of the gas being turned on and the whirr of a computer fan.” “I haven’t heard anything like that, except from the stove and the computer.” Says one of my siblings. “It sounds a bit like the sound before a record plays.” “I think I’ve heard something like that.” “I hear it most at night.” “I’ve definitely heard that.” Crickets, the footsteps of cats, a late-night driver going for a thoughtful cruise, we all begin to agree that the sounds we are hearing at night are the same sound my father hears. “I think it’s coming from the power lines,” he tells his family, “or even the moon.”
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 5.
Shaun Holloway has an MFA from George Mason University where he taught Literature and Composition. His poems have been published in Miracle Monocle, Slipstream, as well as other journals.
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