“Give me a memory of a sound. Try not to use the word “sound” in your writing.” Natalie Goldberg, Old Friend from Far Away

She finally felt the impulse to lift her childhood down pillow from over her face and put her glasses on to see what was exploding.  Roof tiles fell thirteen floors from the top of the high-rise across Gonzalez Drive into a large black rectangular dumpster. No visible humans, just flat black tiles tossed into the sky as gravity sucked them down the side of the building, and they landed with a noisy flop.   Miller’s memory faded back to when someone jumped off that same building a year ago. Miller stood at the crime scene with her camera in the middle of the night looking up those thirteen stories.  She just couldn’t bring herself to cover the story. It was literally too close to home.