A gaggle of perhaps 10 or 12 geese has taken up (hopefully temporary) residence in the creek behind my parent's house, where I currently live. They are impressively loud, even during the wee hours of morning. As I sit in my room reading or watching TV after arriving home from work, I can hear them. Their nighttime calling strikes me as somehow surreal. I think they should be sleeping.

He paces in rough circles in the atrium in front of my desk. As he passes his cellphone restlessly from ear to ear, his muscles strain visibly against the loose gray long sleeve t-shirt that hangs off his broad shoulders. He wears a pair of worn black sweatpants that sag ridiculously at his hips, revealing beige plaid boxers. This probably seems a clever fashion choice, as if being able to see his underwear somehow attracts people to him. And maybe it does. He also sports a ball cap, another fashion statement that has never appealed to me. The only parts of his conversation that I overhear are the occasional bursts of vulgarity.

She, on the other hand, has a voice pitched perfectly for carrying across the atrium and into my ears. Sitting on a couch some ten yards to my right, she ignores the laptop illuminating her face in favor of incessant conversation with a friend (or rather, another woman that I assume is her friend). The details of her chatter, as is the case with the details of much of what we say to each other in the course of a typical day, are trivial at best. She has left now, presumably for the restroom, unaware that her departure has cut short my 'sketch.'