Conversation

Sometimes, at night, if he's not watching TV or listening to the radio, he can hear the woman in the next apartment on the phone. She has a distinctive voice, loud and high-pitched, and the walls are thin. He can't make out what she's saying, or whether it's in English, but he can hear the timbre of her voice, the lilt and flow of it, its occasional ascents that could be either urgency or excitement.

At times like these, he puts down the book he's reading, switches off the lights, and sits very still, listening to the muffled sound of his neighbor's conversation, this music of connection that only he can hear.