The snow is coming down heavy now, settling against the roofs of the cars as I park next to the hatchback. There’s the sleepy sound of another car arriving, its low beams cutting through the dark as it approaches the community camped here by the Towers, and when I hear its engine, I become aware of the silence. The base of the Tower is a dead spot, maybe the only place free from the never-ending drone. There’s no humming, no constant thrum within my head, no incoming messages or pop-up thoughts to block; there’s just the purr of car engines and the quiet of falling snow.

I turn off my headlights and watch the flow of arriving cars illuminating the winter storm. I have no clue if parking here is legal or if the cops will soon arrive to arrest us. Maybe the farmer whose ground this Tower squats on has been given permission for the good of us all. Or maybe the police are here with their own families, slumbering behind the foggy windows of their four-door wagons. I want to message Dad, to tell him to bring Mom, but there’s no connection for me to send a thought, and besides, I can already feel it so clearly: in a moment I’ll be dreaming.

With my eyes closed, I envision the mountains rising high behind my childhood home, full of earth and pine, crisp with the cold of winter. Soon we’ll sand the porch down, open the buckets of paint, dip our brushes in. But for now, there’s the splintery green of the deck and perched on the edge of the railing a single cardinal trying to sing. If it sings just right, it’ll bring the mountains back. They’ll rise around us, the earth splitting with their peaks, as the cardinal’s melody pulls foothills from the soil like worms. Mom, I start to say, but no words come to my lips. Just the cardinal’s head growing larger in my vision, its breast rising as it opens its beak to let out a note, and I open my mouth along with it, my voice cracking with song.

ISLANDERS