I'm Major Jackson, and this is The Slowdown.

Camping in the tent on the banks of Island Pond, beneath the rich darkness of a night sky,

my preteen step-son, Dylan, heard for the first time the long, mournful whale of the loon.

What was that, he loudly whispered.

I refrained from answering, wanting the eerie-ness to echo without disruption across the waters

and into the air.

If I remember correctly, Dylan wasn't keen on camping that night.

The loon made its cry again.

Please, what was that?

This time I heard fright in his voice.

A native son of a Floridian exerb, he'd never experienced the shivering pleasures of

deep listening to night creatures and the great outdoors of Vermont.

The loon's haunting cry is the kind of sound that sends me on a journey inward.

It gets in my bones and makes me wonder before falling asleep about the darkness that

plagues humankind.

Maybe the survival gene kicks in, but suddenly, for a moment, the other noises of the night

seem amplified.

The crunch of twigs and leaves, something slithering, silence itself.

I think I even hear the stars blinking, do forming over leaf litter and down trees

decomposing on the forest floor.

When I awoke the next morning, I greeted the light, the dawning of a new day with even

more fervor.

...