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Yet if he were not there, they would have missed him, as they would have missed the sounds of bees buzzing against the screen door in early June ; ;

or the smell of thick tomato paste -- the ripe smell that was both sweet and sour -- rising up from aluminum trays wrapped in fly-dotted cheesecloth.

Or the surging whirling sounds of bats at night, when their black bodies dived into the blackness above and below the amber street lights.

Or the bay of female dogs in heat.