“I need to get out of the fucking city,” I complain, and ten minutes later you’ve booked a campsite. We trundle up in the Prius, arriving with barely enough time to build the tent and fire before dark. Two s’mores in, the sky black-blue as water, we hear it. A wail, overlapping with its own echo. A few seconds later, a reply sounds from the other side of the lake. “Loons?” I whisper. You shrug. We’ve never heard them before. But they keep on— calls overlapping like transparencies, echoes blurring with birdsong, long after my heart relaxes into the night.
Miles Hilton is a writer and divinity school student living in the Boston area. They get around by biking, talk to the trees, and love dessert. Follow their work on Substack @mileshilton or reach them by email at miles.p.hilton@gmail.com.