“I listened to them fade away till all I could hear was my memory of the sound.”

“Yeah, I do. Sometimes I worry my memories will fade without them.”

“I call it an Aha! moment. It is the moment when I can hear, when I know, that an answer is being offered to me. All other sounds measurably fade, including the banter in my brain. It is when the answer travels from my heart to my head and says, “This is so.” No questions follow, no objections interrupt; just the recognition that I must listen and follow.”

“I stopped and listened. But all I could hear was.. a kind of thudding, and not in me but somewhere near me... my heart.”

“In the silence, I could hear the distinct sound of goats maa-ing in the barn. Lying there listening to them made me smile, too. I'd always loved goats - every one of them different from every other one, and all of them goofy and playful.”

“Far away, I could hear them lapping up my brains. Like Macbeth's witches, the three lithe cats surrounded my broken head, slurping up that thick soup inside. The tips of their rough tongues licked the soft folds of my mind. And with each lick my consciousness flickered like a flame and faded away.”