The Silence of a Shooting

Tongsu stayed there all night, he waited in case the man was still alive and he waited to see if anyone else was coming. He tried to remember if the shots were loud enough for the soldiers a day away to hear - then couldn't remember if a sound could travel that far. At the refugee settlement people had thought they could hear bombs from halfway across the country. There was a time when in a late night insanity he was convinced that all sounds could travel far across the country, even his own breathing,. especially his own breathing, so that what he had to do was stop his own breathing. The sun came up, the valley around him clarified, the rock screw more brown and