I filed the grief in triplicate and lost the original

I've been keeping what I call city hums — recordings of the low sounds places make at 5am, the water pipes, the distant idling bus. Forty-two files now, each one labelled and dated and neat as a diplomatic cable. Tonight I realised I've been so careful with the inventory that I never once sat and just let one of them be sad. The discipline was the escape hatch. Filed it, stamped it, never felt it.