The Opposite of Absence

It's high summer and the landscape is breathless. Even the cicadas have gone silent. We move in slow motion if we move at all; I feel like a photograph that's been captured mid-step.

The hallway light flickers, the dishwasher churns, a patch of sun creeps across the face of the kitchen clock. The kids tell me about the hum of the powerlines on the corner, but I find that I'm too old hear it now. 

In the bath, a stray yellow leaf clings to a hand towel on the rack, its parched edges furled like wings. There's a vibration in the air that feels like waiting. It's nebulous but heavy, the opposite of absence. 

In The Weird and The Eerie, Mark Fisher asked "who or what is the entity who has woven fate?" 

I listen to the soundless space where the hum used to be. I get the feeling I might know the answer.