Night of the Wind Chimes

I've always hated wind chimes, tinking away sadistically in the night.
I hear them now and they are the distance between us, they are shut out there with the lonely wind.
There are so many miles across this vast continent and they chime with the emptiness of a long distance train, rattling the freezing rails.
There are scattered lights across the prairies that go out one by one as midnight approaches.
There are peaks of ice as hard as granite, huddling and hidden and unforgiving in the twilight.
And there's a phone call that he's gone, passed away in the night, serenaded by wind chimes.

"Piggy back, piggy back," my daughter demands.
I carry her upstairs to the dark room and wonder if Jack is ascending a spiral staircase at the same time, finally free of his straightjacket body.
"Listen, Zara," I say as she picks herself up from a heap on the bed. "I have something to tell you."
"Grandpa Jack has died."
"Ok," she replies and there's a short pause. "Let's play soccer."
Let's leave the wind chimes out there in the night to play their solitary tune.