It is deep January. The sky is hard.
The stalks are firmly rooted in ice.

It is in this solitude, a syllable,
Out of these gawky flitterings,

Intones its single emptiness,
The savagest hollow of winter-sound.

The autumn twilight turned into deep and early night as they walked. Tristran could smell the distant winter on the air--a mixture of night-mist and crisp darkness and the tang of fallen leaves.

Stern winter loves a dirge-like sound.

It's very exciting, very intense. You have to be tuned in to every vibration, every sound, because if things go wrong, they go wrong fast.

What time is the funeral"

" Two pm."

"Are you going, Sergeant?"

"Yes."

"Can anyone go?"

"Anyone can go Beula, but only good people with respectful intentions should attend don't you think? Without Tilly's tolerance and generosity, her patience and skills, our lives - mine especially - would not have been enriched. Since you are not sincere about her feelings or about her dear mother and only want to go to stickybeak - well it's just plain ghoulish isn't it?

Om is the signature sound of this Universe. It is the soundless sound of existence.