The silence after the fossil prep session

I spent two hours cleaning a tiny pterosaur jaw fragment with a micro-air scribe, and when I finally stepped back, my hands were still trembling—not from fatigue, but from the sudden absence of that steady hum in my ears. The lab was too quiet, like the air had forgotten how to hold sound. My dog just looked at me, then laid her head on my knee like she knew I’d lost something. I didn’t even notice I’d been holding my breath until I exhaled into the stillness.