She woke up, again, at 3am. That low level hum was in her head. This was the fourth night and she was tired of these five hour nights. She sat up, the street light dimly shining in the room, and plugged her ears with her fingers. No sound. She took her fingers out of her ears. The hum persisted.

So it wasn’t in her head. That was a relief. Well. It WAS in her head but her brain wasn’t the source. She plugged her ears again. Silence except for the quiet swoosh of blood rushing in her body. She unplugged them and the hum was gone. Two seconds later, there it was.

The police department had gotten it through the military surplus program. It came along with a bunch of military gear that went to the SWAT team but they were given it because of its crowd control capability. They were on a schedule. Every morning, between 3am and 4am, they set off the low frequency ultrasound. It would hum for anywhere between a few seconds and a few minutes, in a random pattern. It was supposed to keep the human mind dampened and docile by keeping the mind weary from the low level engagement. It worked well.

Early Monday mornings were programmed to be more persistent. It was found people worked more more diligently and didn’t call in sick, as much. It helped productivity but, more importantly, it kept people docile and controllable. The SWAT team hadn’t been deployed in over 6 months.

She knew this wasn’t normal. She felt it, literally and figuratively, in her core. She suspected the government, then felt silly for being paranoid. That’s the kind of thing you get put in a padded room for thinking. She shoved the thought away. As the hum persisted, she tried to see any pattern. She threw her thoughts back, trying to remember the last four days and realized the hum wasn’t throughout the day but only in the early morning. She noted that it varied in length and time for each and between each hum. She ruminated on the hum, but the only pattern she saw was that it happened early in the morning.

Sitting there, she found herself getting more annoyed but also feeling resigned to the day. She whipped off the blanket and got up. She wasn’t going to sleep, anymore, today.

To be an ally is to listen.

If you do not walk in those shoes, listen.

If you remotely relate because of a similar experience, listen.

If your compassion is overwhelming and wants action, act by listening.

Providing safety to speak, to feel, to be, is more valuable than

performative words of knowledge and awareness.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

We create our reality, whether through perspective (philosophy) or through energy (quantum physics), so everyone and everything we experience is a mirror, whether a reinforcement of our view or a creation of our thoughts.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

Ensure when people regret your death, they miss you & not the

missed opportunities to have known you.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

She passed by the car, again, on her jog this evening. Second day in a row. It wouldn’t be a thing that stuck, except, there weren’t usually any cars parked in the park at that time.

A smaller town, the park closed at 5pm. She loved that it was hers for her hour run. She had moved, almost exactly a year ago, to be out of the constant drone of city life. Maybe she was getting older or maybe it never really suited her but small town life was comfortable.

In that year of taking her run in the park, she'd not seen any cars after 5pm. Parents were feeding their kids and there weren’t many teens living in the town. The ones she’d seen all hung out at the pizza parlor or in the parking lot of the movie theater, on the edge of town. She got home, started dinner, planned for an early bedtime and didn’t give the car another thought.

There it was, again. A third time. The odd thing, beyond parking after hours, was the man sitting in the driver’s seat. He sat in the car, wearing a brown suit and matching fedora, staring straight ahead, with the windows up. It was summer.

The odder thing, was that he sat perfectly still. Not that she got to see him for very long. He was in her line of sight for a about five minutes as she skirted the park but she never saw him move, in that time.

Fourth day and there was the car, again. This time, a woman was in the driver’s seat. The woman looked at her and smiled. When she smiled back, the woman took it as her opening and said, “Such a beautiful evening. Don't get by here, very often, anymore. My father, he loved this park. He was responsible for it being built, you know. He always felt the kids in this town needed a place to play and just be. It doesn’t seem as if it's used as much as it once was.”

She had slowed to a walk as the woman spoke. She asked, “Did your father like to wear a brown fedora?” The woman, surprised, stumbled over her words a little. “Well..um...yes. Every Sunday, he wore his brown suit and fedora. Looked very dapper. We’d usually come by here for an hour or two after church, then go home for Sunday supper.”

She smiled at the woman and at the thought of having seen her father. She wished her a good evening and continued on her run.

The big dandelion wisp floated in the, air at the whim of the light wind, up and down, a good 10 ft high. It danced its way back and forth, to one side, then the next, floating high and dipping low. Dancing to the music of wind.

It floated in the wind, watching the trees sway, the dust bits blow along the road, the sky so clear that it could see the stars twinkling beyond the cloud fluffs, even though it was daytime.

The two legged called it a dandelion wisp but, if they could clearly see, would call it a fairy.

She mused about how the old wisteria growing wild on the fence cast a shadow in the shape of a tall, broad shouldered man.

He stood in front of the fence, all of a sudden aware he was visible to her. If he moved, she would, surely, be startled; possibly scream. He stood still and hoped she’d look away soon. He had to get back.

She mused about how the shadow didn’t move in the wind with the rest of the shadows cast by the wisteria. She stared at it, as she sat in her car, smoking her organically grown cigarette, taking long drags and slowly releasing each one as she stared at the shape not moving. She studied the fence and the tree vine but couldn’t figure what exactly was casting the shadow nor why everything was swaying in the breeze but the shape didn’t.

He felt the tingle of the call. It was time to get back.

As she finished her cigarette, she wished she had more time to watch the shadow. That was too weird how it did not change. She turned away to walk into the building. She’d taken a long enough break.

He barely waited for her to shut the car door before he dissolved into mist and heeded the call.

The smallest conversations between a caregiver & a child can make such a huge difference. A 3 min convo on what a child wants to do in adulthood, can change who they are by changing who they believe they can be.

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras

If you ever see the phrase 'scrotum to the podium'...I coined that shit!

E. Rodriguez y Nogueras