Spitball Army

The phone vibrates. I look down.

Y R U sad, it reads.

I sit alone in my bedroom.  The ceiling fan whrrs overhead.  The curtains billow and rest.

The phone rings.  Hello.  No one replies.

I move to the sofa.  The lights are off.  The cat nestles into a pillow beside me.  The sun comes up.  I hear garbage cans being thrown, empty, into driveways.  The truck passes and turns the corner.

The door opens.  She looks past me, doesn’t move, doesn’t blink.  I sigh, close my eyes.

She is sitting on the floor, cross-legged, meditating.  She looks up.  Where are you going?

The sofa floats past her, my legs dangling.  The cat stirs, then goes back to sleep.  She rises from the floor, comes to rest beside me.  A feather.

We breathe deeply, lean into one another, glide through the window into the drifting night mist.  A cicada chorus envelops us: now as one, now not at all.

[audio:Fred_FM_playlist_080810.mp3]
Fred FM playlist (8 August 2010)

Approximate playing time: 76 minutes.

1. Clare Burson  “Love Me in the Morning”  (2005)
2. Blood, Sweat & Tears  “40,000 Headmen”  (1970)
3. The Doobie Brothers  “For Someone Special”  (1976)
4. Laura Nyro  “Emmie”  (1968)
5. Three Dog Night  “Liar”  (1970)
6. Future Clouds and Radar  “Green Mountain Clover”  (2007)
7. The Beach Boys  “This Whole World”  (1970)
8. Grand Funk Railroad  “Memories”  (1974)
9. The Ramones  “When I Was Young”  (1993)
10. Shack  “Moonshine”  (2006)
11. Evelyn “Champagne” King  “I Don’t Know If It’s Right”  (1978)
12. Michelle Shocked  “How You Play the Game”  (2005)
13. Marty Willson-Piper  “Even Though You Are My Friend”  (1992)
14. Josh Rouse  “Saturday”  (2005)
15. Toumani Diabaté  “Yamfa”  (1999)
16. The Damnwells  “Texas”  (2003)
17. John Lenehan & Rebecca Hirsch  “Arvo Pärt: Spiegel im Spiegel”  (2001)