there is a terrific silence inside me i did not know i was capable of. i am watching the blades twist and wave in the rice field. i am watching delivery trucks drive by on the gentle road, driving steadily without enough rush or spirit to seem like they have a final destination or even an initial plan. i am watching the woman with the ice cream shop, which is just a bamboo lean-to on the side of the road, as she strokes the side of the bright red coca cola cooler, which hasn’t been opened in days. i am watching a cat dart out of the way of a motorbike and i think of every cat we grew attached to and then left, resident cats at hotels and schools and cafes, cats that were ours for a week or a month, cats that we named with silly names like Sir Gregory and Richard Parker, names we forgot when we left. i do not feel anything. i feel a silence inside me that i do not know.