Roosters

I overheard Desiree talking with her father on FaceTime. As they spoke, I could hear, from her father’s end, one of the local roosters crowing in the background. No matter where you live in the Philippines, whether in Metro Manila or a faraway province, roosters are a ubiquitous feature of daily life.

In the early days of our relationship, when Desiree and I were communicating via Facebook and smartphones, I regularly heard her neighbors’ roosters crowing in the cityscape of Makati. While you might imagine having roosters crowing all around you as an annoyance, I rather quickly adapted to and even began to expect the sound in the background.

The nearest equivalent in my life growing up in East Helena, Montana, was the local smelter’s shift-change whistle, which regularly shrieked over the town. The smelter and the whistle are long gone now, but I find myself missing the shrill sound on some level.

—Mitchell Hegman