There was this sound. It was the rumble of an approaching storm. I was reading V.S. Naipaul A Bend in the River and without looking up the sound was the sound of a storm approaching, but in a holding pattern. It’s the rainy season here; all winters are rainy seasons here except for when we get an arctic vortex that kisses the warmer wet weather systems further south. The water in the clouds looks for water on the ground and so it comes here, to the river, the world’s great wound, rolling up, a husband returned after a long voyage. Water returns to water, every single time, even in the desert. But the weather forecast didn’t call for storms and though I thought for a brief moment it might be the washing machine in the basement off balance, I looked up and over, half expecting to see the trees dancing in the wind. But there was no wind. The sound wasn’t getting closer. There was no movement. The sound insisted itself. getting louder. I paused the music midway through The Devil Makes Three’s “Old Number 7,” which alerted the dogs, and stood up to go look out the door.

This is where it starts, I thought.

We drove through the industrial park last night and saw a fleet of plain-marked trucks and SUVs, all fenced and lit and guarded. Sometimes when it’s not college ball season, the university rents out the large parking lots to Ford for all the new trucks no one can afford to buy, or that can’t run because of some computer chip embargo from China. But the vehicles didn’t have new car stickers and were too well guarded to not have all their computer chips. I reminded her there’s still a military base there even though the old naval munitions have long since gone and the soldier’s housing turned into low-rent apartments that have been falling apart since the decommissioning, like a corpse left too long in the elements. They would want a foot hold in the city, if they decided to muster at Fort Knox.

When I opened the door, the storm transformed into drums and fireworks. “Lunar New Year” she said. I closed the door and sat back down. I used my phone calendar to look at the days. “Not until the 17th,” I said. Year of the Fire Horse. But we were both a little relieved, since there are festivals around and we could stop thinking about the fleet of unmarked vehicles, fenced and waiting.