Hish, Lord of Silence
Sidney Sime (1905)

“You can’t be happy and pout; you have to be moody.”
- Keira Knightley, being interviewed on Ellen


The temperature in Lincoln today is 1 degree with a wind chill of 20 below zero. This weather is not particularly conducive to healing, so I eat a peppermint candy to warm the wound.

Last night I went to hear ZZ Packer read at Wesleyan, where their English department finds a way to bring interesting, influential, provocative writers to Lincoln. Our department, on the other hand, does little by way of recruiting visiting scribes - but that’s beside the point; the point, if one could call it a point, is that I felt the empty seat beside me, could hear it aching. Silence, but for ZZ reading, and the squealing empty hiss of longing next to me.