The predawn still is broken by the warbling of the muezzin, intoning the song to prayer. You stir by my side in the silverblue of not quite light as the cry streams in from each Marrakesh minaret offset in time. Even to an infidel this; this sound shared; this moment of divine aware shared, by everyone in the Adhan’s range, is beautiful, in its morning musical wakefulness. More so by your skin in alabaster against mine. Another voice and another and another and another join the chorus and the sound eddies out out across Arabia.
125 BPM of tribal drums and saucer sounds pounds our skin in a sonic fingered massage. A night of dancing under a Goan moon fades under the Indian sun. Bodies writhe in rhythm around us; No need to talk, pointless, only a shout could be heard. We fuck, standing up under a tree, behind branches overhung and held to stay upright, unseen by DJ satoris and swirling techo-sufis. Blanketed and buffeted by sound. Music. Sound. Beat. Sound. Alone. Surrounded. Sounds.
Beyond our building, the bedframe bang, the bedspring squeal, the liferhythm of belonging inside, wails through the walls.
Screaming fights and recriminations; seething frustrations; guttural expectorations pregnant with fear and fire and ire and loss. Neighbor waking exhortations, midnight palpitations, self-righteous orations, unmet expectations.
Iberian sounds surround us; sibilant Spanish and the round sounds of Portuguese play atop the bass and drum rhythm section rumble of train over track train over track train over track train over track. The endpoint cities lay so far ahead and behind that the only light whispers from our windows. The full train feels empty, you fill every nerve, no other sensation gets through. The music of your sighs between Madrid and Lisboa is a fado song, of incomparable tone; we fly across the peninsula; the peninsula flies by our window, almost unseen, against the moonless night, lit only by the sparks from your skin striking mine.
The BoopBoop susurrus counterpoints a baby’s cry. And another. Gurney wheels stalk the hallways morning noon and night. Coos and cries and newborn fears are the symphony of joy and doubt and irrevocable change. The dripdrip of fatherhood sweat. Every mother a martyr an angel a frightened delight. Another baby cries. This one nearby. This one shatters all possible peace. This one is ours.
Louder than those is the silence following the final footpad click of the closing door.
