Outside my house last night, somewhere within the long-needle pines and the juniper, a lone bird called out a single plaintive note over and over again, pausing for a spell between each call. I listened for a while, hearing no other sound in all the countryside around me. The whole night stood still, save the clouds rolling across the sky above.
Eventually, the bird stopped calling. Faced with only silence, I called out a single note of my own and I held the note as long as possible. Once finished with the call, I stood there staring up the dark shoulders of clouds driven slowly overtop the low hills, the mountains.
There. I and that lone bird had our final answer.
Silence.
--Mitchell Hegman
But there could be another night and again you'll hear the bird's plaintive call.
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