Sound is an ornament to the unanswerable. The greatest sounds that creation brings forth surround and encompass me, a reminder of the infinite and untold beauty that travels through the harmonies of Nature and man. These notes flow through me. They dip through the firmaments above land and sea, carrying me to all the countless places the lifestream flows. I am a leaf in this flowing river, though this river never floated me to an unlisted number in Paraguay, and certainly not on the 23rd of May. This fee is unexpected and steep, a jagged boulder splitting the gentle brook of my monthly bill. To the attentive ear, the sound of human action steals through the air without boundary or weight. What can distance mean to the course of the heavens? Nature knows not distance, as I know no one in South America.
Still, there is another aspect of my service that hold ancillary purpose. The wavelengths of the network bend to the decoration and depth of the countryside, and her signal bounds off each piece as it was set by the Creator. Willingly she traverses road and meadow, stream and bridge. Every signal tower is her suitor, and every text message: her dowry. Grace and virtue constitute her footsteps, marking each place she treads, bringing streams of purpose to the low and disconnected. I enjoy her perfect exhilaration. Yet when these noble acts are done, her coverage stops just short of my abode, and I am still charged in full for her data plan.
The movement of man through existence is an intangible event, hinted only by the changing of Nature to its season. Moments are measured by the blossom of the iris, of the cocoon of the moth and butterfly. The horizon is an unending parade of moments marching, following one after the other in alternate periods. Time has no fragments. In what way can an hour be split into pieces, except by reverting to rays of Nature itself? A month contains the beat of a butterfly wing. A minute holds the hatching of a robin’s egg. However, during the last butterfly wing beat, I hatched one hundred and seventy-three robin’s eggs more than my plan’s allotment, and have been charged exorbitantly. Nature cannot be harnessed for corporeal benefit, or counted and billed. This cost should be removed; lifted as the morning fog.
The inhabitants of the valley look up to the mountains, greeting uninterrupted beauty with awe. I look to the majestic swirl of cloud and light that moves throughout the peaks. The nimbus drifts as radiant sea foam. The vapors splinter against the cliffs and jags, blocked by the rock, the snow, the height. The sun herself falls behind it and is unable to climb. Nothing can pass over the mountain. My phone stands apart from its signal, and I have no reception.