Early morning fog, snapping me out in a marching tune, someone speaking in my head in the cloudy half life of groggy morning slumber. Middle tone voices running over the tops of the sheets and covers, tickling my ear like a dog licking my face. The subtext of the language is ‘get up’ ‘get going’.
Half thoughts tumble toward a shower, hands ringing the cold silver taps standing shivering while the water warms, then the cascades of water pulsing over my sensitive skin, stinging while I adjust temperature, while I’m lathering, the radio still accompanies me, muffled words and music become part of the foggy soup atmosphere of the bathroom, the sounds getting caught and strangled in the ventilation fan.
In the car , the heater on 3/4, the traffic jerking along like a half broken clutch.The radio still stroking my ears, holding my hand on the way in to work. I enter the sliding doors of the coliseum, and ascend to the fourth floor and into – funnily enough a Radio studio. Lights wink, CD’s spin up, faders slide like penguins on ice ready for our 10 o’clock deadline. The buttons is gooey beneath my fingers as the theme begins to swamp out of the speakers, a fraction before she speaks the presenter flails her mic ON button and I subtly fade the theme and we’re off.
Looking on one might think it’s complex, but now it’s like breathing, like driving a car, easy- but I can’t get too complacent- that’s when mistakes happen. Numb in this seat I am, through to the end, but attentive. Numb, the way your mouth is after dental work, but still functional. Seek out other challenges for the rest of the day- rebuild websites from miles of heartless code, assist producers with getting sound out of the speakers, overseer, parent figure, Olympian God… ho ho ho . We’re all just people, we inside the radio , with ‘normal’ lives, that sometimes get amplified beyond reason, egos inflated like barrage balloons, importance awarded to those undeserving of Picasso adoration. We’re all real inside the radio, not little people at all.
