Echolalia

Some time after I cross Rockland, I start hearing the music.

It's a male voice singing in a swooping, sad sort of ballad. It sounds like he's being accompanied by a trombone; I don't know how likely that is. The music seems to be coming out of someone's backyard, but fades as I pass, only to issue out of a garden gate. The melody, what I can make of it, swings around houses, first on the right, then the left.

I realize, as it echoes from a balcony, that the performer is far away, perhaps Beacon Hill Park, or at Ocean Point, or the Inner Harbour, or even in Centennial Square downtown. This is a feature of a summer evening in Fairfield; I used to hear eerie echoes of concerts at the Cameron Bandshell while standing by my front gate on Collinson Street.

Perhaps the concert will still be going if I head into the park, I tell myself.

I walk through the ancient arch of maple trees on Chester Street, hearing the song ricochet, and then a voice seems to say, "Thank-you."

But in the park, I hear no music, and the sun is sinking goldenly into silence.

On the logs where the turtles sunbathe during the day, a long row of ducks are grooming in preparation for bedtime.

A sign informs me that an old tree is deceased and diseased, and will be taken down. I touch the rough bark and whisper goodbye, before going to catch the bus home.