The Dog Days Are Over

The house is overly quiet. It is not the hushed tones of potential productivity, but rather the awkward silence of something missing. The boys are back in school, and their absence is a hole surrounded by the mess of their memories.

I have tried to fill the morning with the sounds of jazz and a list of things to do that is practically screaming, but they only leave hollow echoes where laughter used to be. There is nothing here but the tapping of my fingers against a thankless keyboard and the random din of big trucks passing.

The dogs won’t even look at me.