The day was overcast, and few people were out except the construction workers, who barely noticed me. I began the half-mile walk, calculating it should take less than ten minutes.

​

As I made my way deeper into the city, a drizzle fell. The fine mist was cool against my skin.

​

A man passed by—ragged and weathered—but something about him felt profound, as if he existed between worlds; someone who’d glimpsed behind the veil and chosen to remain there. “Have you ever seen sounds and heard colors?” he asked, not looking at me but not looking away, either.

​

I almost ignored him. But the question lingered like an unexpected note in a familiar song.

​

I watched as the rain picked up, darkening the once-dry pavement. “No,” I said. “But I’ve felt words.” I couldn’t understand what made me say that. We locked eyes, and a memory surfaced as if it were compelled: Megan and I signed to each other, discussing a book, and rather than seeing what she said with hands and expressions, I felt it. I could close my eyes and understand, though she might not have believed me. Or, knowing her, she would understand.

​

The thought should have floated past, but it snagged, twisting back on itself, like something woven from light and sound, time and space, a loop that wouldn’t resolve.

​

I turned toward the Hub— 

​

And then, pop.

​

The clang of a construction crew hammering metal was muted; everything had been muted. The motion was there, but the sound was gone. They were lifting a massive SIREN billboard into place. Brown ripples slid from it, slow and thick, resembling melted chocolate falling from a spoon.

​

A car rolled by, silent as a ghost. Yellow and blue waves churned in its wake, like the ocean catching fire under an impossible sunrise.

​

Then I heard the colors.

​

The green shrubs lining the street hummed, a tiny brass section bleating in low lament. A brick building trembled like aluminum siding in a storm.

​

I blinked hard.

​

The world snapped back. The hammer was just a hammer. The shrubs, just shrubs. The brick, just brick.