I couldn’t help but feel, around this time, that the news chyron spoke of a larger disquiet that was settling over the neighbourhood; a sense of unrest that made itself known in small and innocuous ways. Shopping carts tipped over in empty parking lots. A burned-out couch just off the bike path. Foxes copulating in driveways. As I jogged past neighbours’ homes in the early morning, and glimpsed them in their bedrooms getting dressed, or in their kitchens eating breakfast, it occurred to me that The Hum was working on people’s minds and bodies whether they realized it or not. It was affecting their moods, their digestion, their sex life, the way they felt about their husbands and wives and kids. One night, from my bedroom window, I watched our backyard neighbour swimming laps back and forth underneath his pool cover. He must have been at it for an hour. I kept wondering—what happens if he got caught under there? Who would save him? It would take me at least five minutes to run downstairs, pull on some shoes, and dash around the block to his front door, and then who would open the door for me, I wasn’t even sure anyone else was home. People probably had no idea why they were doing half of what they did.

I never looked for omens or placed much stock in coincidences. But there was something about my thinking around that time that made me begin seeing them everywhere. Perhaps the meetings were honing my perceptivity, or conditioning my brain not to disregard the sights and sounds that felt incongruous. When these moments appeared, I did not discount them as I once had, but tried to make space for them to reveal to me whatever it was they held. For instance, on my jog one morning, just as the mist was burning off, a coyote darted out into the middle of the road. I stopped, and I stared at him and I realized, to my delight, that he was the same coyote I saw the night I first noticed The Hum. The same white tips on his ears, the same white triangle patch on his neck. He was much larger now, almost an adult. His coat was shiny and thick. His large, bat-like ears stood upright, flicking back and forth, perceiving sounds I could only imagine. I stood there admiring him, and he looked back at me, letting me admire him. And I talked to him. Look at you, I said. You’re the most perfect thing in the universe.