birth

I can almost hear the voice, tactile and smooth in my imagination, curling and settling softly in my ears like the finest, cleanest lines of Miles Davis.

“This is the all-night request line, for those of you awake enough to know we’re closer to daylight than midnight. Got a request? A dedication? Something on your mind?” A pause. If there was such a radio show, playing at an hour like this, on a night like this, I could imagine a speech like that hanging on a pause and finishing with “Give us a call. We’ll see what we can do.” The hiss of dead air would be followed by the the shuffling of notes and fingers, followed by shunting the current phone call to the live audio feed.

After all, a show like this one wouldn’t exactly need a tape delay.

* * * * *

“A good night to you, caller. You got me. I’m listening. Talk to me. Tell us who you are.”

“I’m Amy, from Huntsville. I’ve been trying to call in for ages, and just couldn’t ever get through.”