Burning Questions

The fireplace has been wheezing non-stop, emitting a high shrill; one that seems rather more animal than burning wood. It is October and the Night Blooming Sirius is opening outside. Whitest white petals push the bloom from the inside out. In hours she will have closed again.
Who does she summon with perfume this rainy midnight? Who will visit her while we sleep? This ritual is older than we think, and she has opened not for us, but for those others. Those who witnessed her prowess. Before. Before the word "flower." Before the fire learned to scream.

Autumn showers

In class when you close your eyes, the sound of keys clicking on laptops (I always thought they were labtops, until recently, it sounds the same if you say it outloud, laptop, labtop), if you close your eyes in class you hear keys click at unpredictable, constant intervals, and it is an experience like a rain shower falling on a tin roof. One thousand fingers at a time, falling against the professors lonely voice. Last week, one professor finally broke down, and called out, as he strained to hear a students question "please stop typing" like a shout from under an umbrella, and we did, and the sun was pink against the buildings.