He watches soundless television; mornings are late to catch his early waking. The prayers are offered in even silence of equal parts of night graduating into day. It isn't about listening, but reading lips to hear what voiceful words don't say. And his eyelids don't close over iris of light, so it's hard to know if he has walked through into his world. Once, a man throttled him in his dream and all he could manage was a gasp weak as a tide under a low moon. As hard as it is for his fingers to roll counting beads as a way to swim forward, he has seen large flames lick walls of a masjid's circumference. He came back home that day with camouflage clotting his veins, and his mouth moving to the rhythm of his eyes. He trods like the fin of fish; weight, measure of inversion. Nobody knows he stopped hearing for years. * Previously published at Uppagus