a yawn that sounds like a lullaby sung by rippling water

On the other side of the world, everyone has headaches. There's a constant squeal coming from the sky, dropping down like torrential rain.

When we heard of this over the airway, the voices of the reporters were almost totally buried under the broken woofer, in-the-redness of the background squeal. Plus, if you add accents to the mix, well, at first we thought it was a prank and we were foolish enough to not fall for it.

Now, hours later, our leaders are addressing us in clipped sentences, saying they're sending out an air raid to attack the heavens over our allies. The true identity of enemy is unknown, vague as a light mist. But we have the equipment and the manpower, so we're going after it all guns blazing. Relief workers are sent to dispense aspirin.

There's this girl. Her eyes are mismatched, like the squares on a checkerboard. She has a voice so soft and sweet you have to fight to hear it and it's always worth it. We're on the couch, watching the mayor on public access tv make noose-like pleas for cooperation. He wants us to take up ribbons and knot them around old oak trees and all that, to unify! and to make the global local.

As he says this, this girl—she's a genius—, she lets out a yawn that sounds like a lullaby sung by rippling water, then drops the lids over her wondrous, discordant eyes, presses her left ear against my shoulder, falls asleep and never wakes up.

At the exact moment I feel her heart surrenders itself, I know I'm in love, irrevocably.