The Waiting by Belinda Subraman
Silence has no zen today. Ambient freeway noise from ј mile away, the occasional Friday nighter coming home 2:00 a.m. Saturday, the appliances with two-tone hums, the bumping and grinding of an old swamp cooler, a distant train, forces what has been pushed back to break through. My father needs O 2 all the time now. His innocence in countering the surgeons’ truth with his wishes and beliefs stabs me in the heart with love while his every movement is pain. He says he is ready but I feel his fear. The hum of the universe is machine noise, a motor with it’s timing off. I meditate on this: silence is a whistle, a din in the wind, in the dark.
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