Today there is no noise, no sounds of little boys or the sweet chaos of arguments and minor struggles between siblings over bow and arrows, pretty rocks and used up toys. The sounds of stillness deafen my yearning ears but to no avail. They and all their pretty noise, shrieks and raucous clamor have now returned to a distant Alabama. The coffee in the kitchen drips and makes that liquid noise inside a closed up silver machine.  Outside the window a gurgling creek bubbles past smoothing the patient rocks. A distant bird calls within the woods but still no sounds from little mouths. Since only yesterday when noises piled together like spaghetti and banged around inside my head today there is so nothing. Linda smooths a freshly laundered sheet onto a recently peed on bed making sliding sounds with her hands. Moose’s elbow bangs upstairs on the wooden floor scratching some invisible flea secreted in his dappled fur, like someone knocking, knocking at the door. Otherwise there is mostly silence and it is so thunderous!