Minute Thirty-One

Julia goes down the cut with the recorder's wire in her fist. You sit by the rock with your hand near the phone and not on it. The counter on the screen runs.

1:00 The ribbon. 4:00 A drone blinks out over the highway. 7:00 A truck. 9:00 A different truck. 14:00 The rush, wings and wind. 15:00 A man in a reflective vest stops, looks at the phone, looks at you, and goes on. 21:00 The rock under the phone ticks. 26:00 The last of them, in no hurry. 29:00 One comes back, circles the mouth once, and goes out again. 30:00 None.

Julia comes up the shoulder with the recorder dripping. You reach for stop. The counter says 31:04, and out of the phone, thin, as if from the far end of a pipe, Julia's voice from some earlier day says: Volume check. Hello, cave.