Silence

　　I lifted the door lever and went outside to stand in the quiet. Then I leaped through the deep snow, through the woods, around the pond, and out to the road where Flora and Nickel's car had been. I stood looking down the road. The quiet was almost as loud as the noise of the wind.

　　The snow was high. No one had plowed. It was the longest stretch of white I'd ever seen——up and down the long road.

　　I listened, but there were no faraway sounds of cars or plow trucks.

　　Silence.

The Poet's Dog, P61-62
Patricia MacLachlan
ISBN 978-0-06-229262-9