A small room inside a bay window. A single bed, a table and chair, and a sink. I could manage something larger, with more conveniences, but I could never match the view.

The room next door, which was vacant for so long, is now occupied, and I wake to its music: soft giggles, intonations, the shapes made when reading from a book. Her to him, him to her. The sound of it falling to the floor...

It is their silence I am dragged into. Not passing cars, I realize, but their breathing. Slow and steady, then erratic.  Creaks, springs, the headboard keeping time.