A long time passes—long even in the understanding of stone—and at last Bone feels 
entitled to speak to Silence. There were prerequisites: proper depth, aridity, desiccation, ph 
balance, density, and a kind of confidence. No loam: say salt, say dust, say southwest Utah. And 
when the conversation occurs it is understood on Bone’s part what to expect from Silence, so one 
could say that expectations were low, but such is a pattern of our thinking, and in this case the 
entire dry dialectic is different, and in fact expectations were high. There is a moon shining, 
unknown to Bone, intimate with Silence. There are mammals overhead, the noise of whose small 
feet are perceived or unperceived.
	And after all this discursive talk, what at last does Bone say to Silence? What would you 
have Bone say to Silence? We could try Is there anywhere we can go for a beer? and that might 
get a little laugh, might qualify as ineffably human, almost religious. But we know better about 
Bone & Silence—need only look inside us, have the bravery to cease this chatter, this scrape of 
pencil on paper, to leave the rest of the book blank, get out of the way, let the conversation begin.