Acquaintance

Someone at the party kept yelling my name, and I kept turning to meet the voice, but the voice kept receding, and receding, always seeming to be in a corner just behind my ear, behind a cluster of laughing people here or there. The voice was playful at first, and empty, but it soon took on an insistence and urgency such that I could not help but start to imagine the voice was that of a teacher, or mother or father, or some other figure of authority calling me home. I went in the backyard and stood next to the pool, and the voice stopped. Water, as we know, has that kind of dampening effect on nonverbal communications.

Francis Waarm
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