#109
The car has a squeaky fan. The one that blows hot air into the cabin, or cold air — just air. It’s slight, the sound, but it’s there. I can hear it.
I turn up 88.7FM to try and cover the noise, but I still notice it. It’s on the drivers side, not the passengers. I wonder if a passenger could hear it? Does the dog hear it in the back seat? Doesn’t seem like it.
Going up North Ave. The road is wide, five, six lanes. The squeaky fan is there, on the left side of my head this time. I think back to the pile of plates ready to be washed in the sink. The wine glass with a bit of water in the bottom to help with the residual red left in it - don’t want to stain them. Easier to wash out and put away. Stale coffee from the past mornings dangles on the corner.
Back on North Ave, I turn the air off - I can’t take the squeak any more. I open all the windows. The dog sticks his head out the back one, his ears flapping, he sneezes. It’s cold today, but the sun is out.
88.7FM, I can’t hear it with the windows down. Back home, the dryer is probably beeping now, the socks and shirts and underwear, warm with the manufactured heat, ready to be folded and put away. The little song it plays when it’s finished, annoying. I like the coffee pot, it beeps only once to signal it’s completion. I like that.
I roll the windows back up. The dog lays down. We turn right on 8th street, and head towards the park where the trails are, where the beeps and squeaks are back in the material world, not in the natural world. The beeps and squeaks here, of the birds, of a crunch underfoot of rocks and sand. Self made.