Gallery > Torn Wing: An Elegy To Childhood

When I hear the other room muffled voices rise and fall in a musical symphony of angry and solemn, pleading and demanding, my ears grow to elephant size and my eyes open unblinking as bats in caves.

How do I know at six years of age that these sounds are threatening? Even when they become long term and daily, they are threatening and not ever normal.

In first grade we had bomb drills, taught to duck under our desks for protection. At home I applied these skills.