It’s late; or maybe it’s just very early. Still, I try to sleep but find that I cannot. Night after night; or maybe it’s morning after morning.

All that I know for sure, really, is that it is dark and I am still not asleep. But I wish that I was. God in heaven, I wish that I was.

The noise. That noise, what was it? What is it? Is it normal? Have I heard it before? Will it wake my wife or my kids or my dogs? Should I be concerned? Should I be afraid? Should I get up and look and face whatever it is, whatever it might be?

Maybe I should just keep trying to fall back asleep. Just wish that I could. God in heaven, I wish that I could.

There is that noise that starts in October and runs well into this month. A nearby farm as it processes grain or whatever it is that it does, all day and night, constantly and without surcease, that makes such noise, especially when carried on the wind in the night or even very early morning. And with the leaves now gone and the air now cold it seems to carry louder still, reflect and return and add to the growing din. What is that? I should know but I do not. I will one day though.

I have a constant ringing in my ears- tinnitus it is called. You mostly get used to it but there are times when it stands in the fore and demands all of my waking attention. They say it drives some people to suicide it can get so bad. During the day it is usually somewhat masked by the sounds all around but at night, at night it dominates and keeps you awake and forces you to listen, perhaps even to things beyond what you might normally have heard. God I wish that the ringing would just one day stop as abruptly as it one day began those years ago now.

The house settles and moans. Some seems normal and some seems not so. And if the weather changes, if the wind attacks with furor as it is apt to do in these parts in November, if the temperature drops or rises rapidly as it is apt to do in these parts in November, if the rain falls before changing to snow as it is apt to do in these parts in November, well, then the house really has little choice but to settle and shift and react and move and shake and shimmy and moan and groan and sigh and grunt and in general respond to whatever assaults it as if to let us know that, perhaps in its own peculiar way, it lives and has a heart and a soul like you and like me and, in the end, you are not sure if it is, perhaps like you, in pain and just letting all inside know so.

So you listen and wonder and still you do not rise. It is yet dark but you do not know the time because you do not really want to know. There might still be sleep to be had, some sleep to be had, unless you see that it is almost your usual time to rise and face the dawn.

The furnace. An appliance. A child rolling or shifting or coughing softly in his sleep. One of the dogs as it dreams or simply makes some canine noise. (Just please don’t bark as that would be a bad sign that there is more yet to worry about.)

The coyote pack on the hunt. Are they drawing nearer to us or is that, too, a trick of the wind and the cold and thin nighttime air?

Was that the creaking of a stair or two? Did that sound come all the way from down in the basement? Was that something in the back yard? I thought I heard a chair move down there in the kitchen.

Plumbing from somewhere. Someone up to use the bathroom; maybe the water softener as it recharges itself. But it could be a leak has sprung somewhere and you had better get up to check it out and stop it before too much damage occurs.

Did that new TV just turn itself on again or is one of the crazy kids up and watching it when he should be sleeping?

Someone’s phone alert just went off didn’t it? Was that a text message or maybe an alarm? I know it wasn’t mine because my phone is right here next to my bed. Or is it?

A bird on the roof. What was that in the attic? Maybe a mouse or rat or squirrel. God no, it might be a bat and that would not be good; no not at all. I can trap a rodent (later of course) but a bat? Oh man, not that.

What time is it? What day is it? What is on the plan for today? What will lie in wait for me, for us, for the world this coming day?

I need to get up but cannot. I think of all the places I have lived and slept and the nights, or mornings, just like this when I lie awake and listen to the noises of the night, or morning, of that night, of that morning, of that place, of that time. And I remember like it was just a moment ago.

But that is not now and I am no longer him. Yet it is still a cold and breezy November morning so like those from then and those still yet to be.

And I listen to the sounds of the night, this night, or this morning, and it is still dark and I still cannot go back to sleep.

So I rise and listen and wonder what kind of day this will be. And I hope that that noise, that all of those noises, are not going to be something for me to worry about any longer.

At least, not until later tonight.