“Is there something wrong with cans? I mean, scientifically?”


It’s the click that gets me. Actually, that’s a lie. It’s the hiss. You know, that sound you hear when you pop a soda. Everyone knows. It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that when a can is opened, a click and a hiss are emitted. Period.


“Not scientifically. But you heard that right? The sound it just made.”

“No. I didn’t hear.”


“Yes. You did hear.”


“Didn’t.”


“Did.”


“Didn’t.”


“Did.”

A momentary silence ensues, chased by the Sound Your Breath Makes As It Slides Past the Glinting Metal in Your Lip. Then I pad over to the cooler, grab a Sunkist, and plop back down across from you on the quilt.


A short breeze kicks up and blows your hair into your face, and your eyes flash to mine, electric. I pause as I wait for the wind to die down, using your hair as the point of focus, turning the zoom of my brain in and out until finally, the strand is no longer broken, but one.


My fingers suddenly yank the tab on the can, and the click and the hiss, the picture I’m taking, the gun I’m cocking, the match I’m lighting, sound like electricity looked to Ben Franklin as the course of human history was changed forever.


“You did hear.”


You pull your ring into your mouth, sucking on the inside. I’ve known you for as long as a person can know another person, and still I don’t know what that gesture means.


“You’re right. I did hear.”


“It was loud wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?”


You pull your ring into your mouth again, then slowly let it slide out. Finally, finally, you look up into my face, and the set of your jaw, so hard and soft at once, say everything I’ll ever need to know.


“Like a bombshell.”