As a child, sometimes I'd lay my cheek on the desk and press my ear to the wood's coolness. I'd pretend the clicking and scraping I heard (echoes from other movements around me) were proof of life beneath the surface —an army of ants or microscopic beetles carving roads, lifting stone out of hidden quarries, building settlements. Because if you listen hard even now, there are residues of sound fallng inside the architecture of every stillness. And there are also long, rich pauses akin to the quiet of sleep, which is what others thought my bent head meant—a child always caught in the throes of dream.