From the rainy inland forests of Cascadia to the hot, dry swelter of Salt Lake City, and back again eastward toward the beginnings of the great Mississippi Delta, there arose a great thundering of drums that was heard only by those with ears close to the ground-- close enough so their ears would twitch with the mellifluous drone of a locomotive or twinge smelling the pristine quintessence of magnolias at dawn.... there arose something akin to a crowd's murmuring in the far off distance. And their voices, collectively, began to swagger and moan, and they seemed to be speaking all at once, though there were many voices, all different, some high some low, there was but one. Still forming some cresting crescendo which hummed until it became like the whirr of a thousand locusts, or the memories of the world's dead. And then it fell silent. And what was left was this.