Fiction # 2

She was only half listening; she’d only turned on the radio for some background noise.  Anything that would drown her panicked thoughts, her growing anxiety, her feeling that any minute she could literally explode into a thousand pieces, disappear into the sun, crumble in a pile of ashes, or fall off the edge of a cliff. 

Then, there it was.  The song.  THE song.  The one she swore she’d never listen to again.  Screaming out of the car radio, demanding that she pay attention to it.  Trapping her hands on the steering wheel, keeping her from reaching for the knob and turning it off, now, forever.

Instead, despite her resistance, the rhythms drew her in, the words scrawled across her consciousness, the memories came flooding back.

Had it really been forty years? 

A smile crossed her face as she melted into the warm, sandy beach surrounded by screams of laughter, the rattle and buzz of boat engines, the feeling that life could not possibly be any better.

She and Danny sat on the blanket, with her new portable radio next to them, her graduation gift, her lifeline to the newest songs, the newest stars, in a rapidly changing world of music. 

Just then, the radio announcer breathlessly broke in with the latest “sure-to-be-a-hit” hype.  Danny looked at her and rolled his eyes. 

“Yeah, right,” he grinned sarcastically.

Yet, they both listened quietly as the song’s magic pulled them in, the words resonating in their hearts, “Crystal blue persuasion; it’s a new vibration.”

It was a new time.  A time to believe in love, in peace, in equality, in justice.  A time to break free of old boundaries, hypocrisies, injustices.  A time to make a difference.  They could feel it in the air.  They were both eager for the next step in their lives, college in the fall and becoming part of meaningful movements and protests there.  The song said it all, “A new vibration.”

Still smiling, she abruptly rejoined reality some forty years later, as the song ended and the announcer blared out the most recent campaign ads.  Angrily, against her will, she remembered Danny’s abrupt decision to join the army, to be a part of making things “right” now, not months from now in college. 

Bitterly, with tears forming at the corners of her eyes, she let the rest of the memories in, the ones she’d been avoiding those long and tired forty years.
Danny’s body arriving at Los Angeles in a black body bag and later hidden inside a closed casket.   “Injuries disfiguring,” they’d said.  Her sleepwalk through the news of his death, the funeral, the burial.  Her fury that he deprived her of his love.

Gently, the tears increased till a clear stream flowed down both her cheeks.  She had never cried.  She’d done what everyone said she should do—go on with her life, get an education, have a career, get married, buy a house, have children.  And, when she did allow herself to think of Danny, it was only to be angry.

But, something was different today.  Maybe it was the song.  Maybe it was the divorce.  Maybe it was her fifty-seventh birthday.  Maybe it was time.

Barbara Mundt