Dearest Olianda

Amazing how my memory is so often provoked by music. Or, rather, assaulted by it. Like a great army of rhythm and blues one finds it has a prime efficiency in bashing our heads in (literally, figuratively and metaphysically).1

I just got off the phone with an old friend. Imagine my surprise that I have an old friend. There I sat in this room, considering the drywall’s oeuvre, when with gusto, the sickly little phone beside my nightstand rang…and rang…and rang.2

I should explain. I felt it was necessary that the so far unknown caller be significantly surprised by my response to their intrusiveness. It makes life all the more effortless when one is surprising, or should I say, out unanticipating those around him. A small part of me prayed for a marketer of some sort, so I might have satisfaction in making its (they’re beyond sex) life miserable, just a little bit.3

Speaking of my poor old communicator: the phone itself is something to behold to unfamiliar eyes. Rotary. Perhaps one of the last in the city. Its cords are rotted away by unknown infection and malady, the kind that only rubber seems to develop. Among the mold, teeth marks pock the healthy surface. These are where my old companion basset hound found ecstasy when the furies of puppyhood ravaged his rose little gums. Rest his rheumatic soul. The receiver is perhaps the most pathetic within the collection of pitiable creation that is my telephone. It is in two parts, and I do not mean it was manufactured as such. In a fit of boredom and sexual frustration one summer I can’t remember the name of, it became the orifice of release for my former roommate, whom took a peculiar carnal pleasure from voltage and black plastic. I don’t want you to believe it killed him—though the urge had crossed my mind to do so myself—but let us say between “friends” he was not the same thereafter. I lived alone after that. With a lock.4

My old friend (her name escapes me for the moment) was interested in looking me up. I looked her up many a time myself, so this was indeed a smart surprise. I must admit I felt a certain pang of guilt in having made her wait me out before, but it’s since passed.5

I always liked Jacqueline (her name returns!). She used to court me when I wasn’t a writer. I was a student then, a bohemian…or some other sort of pseudo intellectual prick that all true university students become and/or are. I assumed she was fonder of my features than of my intellect. She was not unpleasant herself. A real sprite as a matter of fact. That is, big hips, intermediate bust, very Attic nose. Bleached blonde no less. One of those little girls that has never known a state of unattractiveness. I could have had more of her too. Yet more regret I see. I’m dwelling. My point, such as it exists, is that she wants to see me.6

Now, what really was interesting—and in an effort to bring us back to the initial observation—is that after Jacquie (her name forms clearer) and I brought our conversation to a conclusion, my radio began to blare. I shan’t go into its specifics (though it’s suffice to say it isn’t nearly as historical or beautiful as my telephone), but it does not usually go off on its lonesome self. To be honest, I haven’t used it as an alarm since my early twenties. Be that is it may, it did blare, and it did blare a song I haven’t heard since I last spoke to Jacqualine. It might even be said (if you’re ignorant enough to think that sort of thing is significant) that it was “our song”. Certainly I have memory of listening to it in our many explorations of one another, but it never held much emotional significance until now.7

Now I find myself fondly remembering my youth and the humble romances I once took for granted. And oddly enough I thought of you. I know I swore I’d never in a monolith of years speak to you again (“when entropy is reversed” was my exact wording I believe), but I think it’s high time for an update…or at least a confession.8