My Neighbor Built a Balcony Over My Backyard While I Was Away So I Made Him Tear It Down

a while. The crickets were doing exactly what they had always done in that yard, which was to fill the evening with a sound so ordinary and consistent that you only notice it when it’s the only thing you can hear. Which, in that yard, it was.

People ask me sometimes, when I tell this story, whether I regret not trying harder to negotiate before I called continue reading …