The truth about waiting mode

I've started so I'll finish. Unless I don't.

As I type, I can hear the washing machine spinning. I know the particulars of that industrial whine as well as I do the voice of my own mother shouting in the dog for his lunch. It’s about eight-ninths of the way through, and when the cycle emits it final cough, deathly silence will descend as the floorboards recover, disturbed only by the insistent pin…