Does My Dog Like My Music?

Situations of I

Does My Dog Like My Music? 

(second edit) 

I say that music is reality; as real as my tabletop. Okay, stinging hand. Feel the burn—I hear the song and hit the table again. Real.

Songs are complete universes. I get lost in them each time. 

A performer grows older, or dies, and I still have that song, perfectly preserved, just like he and I used to be. Like we always have been.

I listen, and my feelings are carried higher, soaring, above long-ago reawakened days. Each time I remember. 

Again. 

Always like this.

Again. 

Only more so.

I always feel what I remember when my song plays. Every time, I remember it, and then I remember it more every time. Like this.

What would a world of silence be? Could it have nostalgia? Could it grow in me?

Silence.

Nothing.

No thing. 

With just silence, I’d hear just my silence looping over and over, right? Silence would be my favorite song.

From songs to me.

From too quiet, to too loud to tolerate.

Can’t I keep my songs when I go away forever? Maybe there’s music made of me. Could I be silence? Something tells me, “Yes.”

For now—push ‘play’ on that damned cassette player, CD player and iPhone. Turn on that turntable, and set the needle gently down in that outer groove. Gently.

And keep them ALL playing. Thank God. Thank God. Keep them all playing. 

Does my dog, Mike, like this music? Maybe he can’t hear it.

Maybe he’s listening to something else.

[- excerpt from "Situations of I," a collection of short stories & essays.]