— farthest south

In the morning, my ears tune to a different range, high peaks lost in their craggy blindness amidst the fog. But the valleys, seemingly closer now, and the low rumble of the creek almost lapping at my head, drift into my ear like a watery worm, its muffled noise, like a closing cacophony of hornets, or a beeping garbage truck in the alley, or, like so many fucking lawnmowers up the block. And soon, what once came to me as the sound of the slumbering earth itself turning, is nothing more than the busy idiocy of its inhabitants — that, and the distant, gentle bubbling of the percolator, lapping at my ears, its range lower and softer than all the rest, dripping like a stalagtite at the mouth of a cave I am otherwise reluctant to near.