the tuning fork

steel, half a hand long, with the number 440 stamped near the yoke. it rests stem-down in a small lacquer box lined with claret velvet. a single fork; no twin. it has been here longer than most of the furniture.

struck against a knee or the lid of the piano, it gives a clean a — neither bright nor warm, just there, the way truth is there. unstruck, it gives nothing. it is, in this drawer, the smallest possible reference. all the larger instruments in the house once asked it a question and received this same flat answer.

the man who used it taught singing in the back room twice a week. he tapped it on his knee, held it to one ear, then nodded. he has not been here in fifteen years. the fork keeps. nothing in it can go out of tune. when no one is listening it is, technically, still silence — but it is the kind of silence that can be turned into a sound at any moment, which is a different silence.

the piano · the violin · the oboe · humming · number