“Happy, darling?" Faith asked her husband.
“Blissfully, now that you are back safe and sound. Don't do it again, Faith, okay?"
“You always say that." She leaned her head on his shoulder.
He kissed the top of her soft, fragrant hair. "And you never listen.”
Just before dawn, there is a moment of total silence the French call "l'heure bleue"—the blue hour. It is not, strictly speaking, an hour, but a minute—a minute that seems to stretch far beyond sixty seconds.
It is the time when the night creatures have fallen asleep and those of the day are not yet awake.
If you are in the country away from the noise of a car or truck, you can feel the silence. It is palpable and, for the duration, even frightening. You stand in a large field and watch the sky begin to lighten, praying for the return of sound other than your own blood pounding in your ears. Praying for proof that the universe continues. You are tempted to call out—to no one.
Then the shrill peeps of the morning birds start and mount. They sound unnaturally loud. Only now—after the silence.
A rooster crows.
And far away from France, on this particular day, September sixteenth, a baby adds her first cries as l'heure bleue passes.