hello/ha x 2

Sound falls out of the window above the street, and the warm air can't stop it. Below there are lots of sweaty arms. There are bra straps falling as grocery bags are shucked up and held tight for the walk back to cars and apartment doors that stick. Sound falls out of the window, falls and hits a few of the shoulders passing below, and the warm air keeps on rising, ignoring it. Show-off sound.

There's a voice on the radio. It is loud. What this radio sound doesn't know yet is that it can fall so fast. It can fall heavier and faster than the whack of the baby's plastic rattle on the t.v. tray. Much, much faster than the slippers picking up dustballs as they shush, shush across plastic tiles that no one sweeps.

The sound pushes out and points its toes.

"...public image belongs to me..."

It pauses on the window sill. Waits. Ties itself to the curtain rod to stay just inside, just enough. Smart sound.

Below, on the street, a boy looks up and his eyes meet the sound hanging there, a laundry line orphan. A drunk acrobat.

The sound reels and kicks a leg into the night air.

"...my entrance...my own creation...my grand finale..."

Suicide! Don't do it, sound. We love and need you! The boy's eyes can't leave it, can't look away at all. He wants to catch it, to pry open his grocery bag like a fish mouth and trap it inside with his Lysol and tub of butter. He could run down the street with it, through all that warm air, past the arms and bra straps. Will it burn through the bag? Explode the Lysol? "Hi, I'm just running home now and oh hey! there's a fire under my arm, ha." He doesn't know if it can hurt him. He thinks it probably won't.

Then, the sound lets go.

Or was it pushed?

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.

.

.

.

.

It never lands.

And the boy, after a beat, after opening his bag a little, walks home.

fell on 2004-07-14 at 10:48 p.m.

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