Did you hear something?

John and I were lounging this evening, watching our TiVo'd episode of Lost when we could hear what sounded like someone singing outside. John made the "shsh" sound, loosely interpreted as mute the TV and stop talking. The more we craned our ears, the more the sound took on the flavor of a child's voice, maybe laughing, maybe crying. John heads out the front door but as soon as it opens, the sound is gone. Joshy's room is above the living room, so he heads up to make sure that it wasn't a "I sound like a foreign child in a nearby field when I sleep" situation. As soon as we give up the hunt and settle back down, the sound starts up again. This time I am determined to find the source, starting to fear that there could be a child who managed to let himself outside, reminiscent of John's 4am treks from his house as a child unbeknownst to his parents. John heads out the back door into the pitch black, as buy lights for the back is still on the to do list. I, in turn, head out the front, standing in the cold in my shorts and t-shirt, scanning the darkness for what I am now certain is a babbling child. I can see barely anything, suddenly aware that our street is not well lit and thankful for the cop car parked two doors down. John joins me on the porch, equally frustrated that this noise is seemingly generating from nowhere. As if the ground beneath us is crying. The only thing that we can plausibly think of is a neighbor child throwing a severe enough fit that the wales drifted through their brick walls, across the night sky, into our living room and over the convoluted scripting of Lost. The sound is surrounding us and I can not figure out how it hadn't drawn anyone else out of their house. It has now been 15 minutes of searching when I see the glint. I hone in my eyes and as they adjust, realize that we have been frantically searching in the night to stand between harm and a black stray cat. Then he died. Not really but it makes for a better ending.