Time, gentlemen. Time, please.

Do you ever get used to it? The fact that you can’t get ice cream across the street from the all-night Korean deli at three in the morning because you moved to another state, and the only thing across the street is another house?

For years I thought the craving for the city noise would just go away; the rattle of the metal shutters coming down when the Chinese restaurant closed up for the night, the hissing whoosh of the bus stopping at the corner. Here in suburbia, other sounds testify in the night; raccoons bristling and screeching in the mulberry trees; the throbbing cry of the cicada signifying that July has arrived; the lonesome song of the crickets, whispering to humanity that summer is at its peak and waning, time is almost up, hurry, hurry.