Summer Nights

It's raining tonight. I can hear the wind whistling and the rain lashing against the glass. If I close my eyes, I can pretend I'm at home in my own bed. The storm is a more familiar lullaby than the chirping cicadas or the strange warbling song of the geckos that usually accompany the Okinawan nights.

In the morning, the sounds of the sirens and cars, the public announcements and the jingles of the garbage trucks making their rounds will be like an alien language calling me from sleep. But inside my apartment the silence will seem overbearing. Where are the sounds of everybody? Mom's voice calling me down to breakfast (Aunty's voice asking, 'What's for breakfast?') WeiA telling me to 'wake up!', and ShuSen and Chunni squabbling in the background (already?). All these noises I never noticed; the random variations of pitch and vibration mingling to create a rhythm as familiar to me as my own heartbeat. My ears seem to miss them. The silence inside wakes me up as surely as the noises without.