The sounds of silence

In the wee hours of the night — say 2 or 3 in the morning — if you lie awake in bed, what do you hear?

My husband breathing. My dog’s collar as she stretches and rolls over. A cricket chirping a pulse of the temperature. Sometimes the call of a night bird. If I’m lucky, a tree frog.

But beyond that, the sounds we have normalized, the sounds which shouldn’t be there. The sounds of fossil-fueled engines, the sounds of global warming pollution.

Cars on the street. The not-so-distant freeway. LAX airport, running 24/7/365, heating our world. … the sounds we must halt if we are to save ourselves.

They’re threatening to cancel those other, quieter sounds, the sounds of Life.