Or if I imagine the sound of moaning wind, my visual imagination will start wondering where it's coming from and will offer up an image. The one I just got was the weathered corner of a cabin somewhere. Something's going on inside the cabin. I'm listening again. It's a creaking rocking chair.
Someone's in there.
A story begins to appear. If I want to make my story creepy in order to thrill a child who loves to be a little scared, I'll drop a skeleton into the rocker and try to figure out how it got there. If I want to tell a softer tale, I'll fill the creaking rocker with a Mother Chipmunk in her bonnet, worried about her son Livingston Capricorn Chipmunk or somebody like that, who is, of course, out on adventures only chipmunks can have. The skeleton and rocker disappear. In their place sit three guys with Doritos and a half-empty case of Samuel Adams.