#11: Slow Burn

It wasn’t that I was avoiding listening to it. It was that I knew the conditions had to be right. The instructions were clear: loud or with headphones. Headphones are buried under a mountain of boxes; files, electronic, forgotten things that we just can’t afford to lose, for whatever reason. And loud was buried under sleeping babies and concentrating on homework.

Then, a voice mail. Have you listened to it? He asked. Damn.

The best speakers in the world are in my office. At least the best $60 speakers. He should know, he helped me pick them out.

It is the end of a long day, filled with academic disagreements. Should we be teaching? Should we be training? Should I even be here, I keep wondering? And a long weekend is splayed out before me, less than 10 minutes away now.

I press play. Slow Burn, the song is called. Or, the work, I suppose. Avante Garde, right?

Really, though, his work never stops amazing me. Low, slow, burning. I want to see the sounds coming out of the speakers. I dare to push the knob up a little more. The smoldering catches hold, the flames shoot up, but without adulation; without being forced up. The flames consume the oxygen that they must—taking mine away.

I dare to push it up again. Now I watch, delighted, as professors swarm the halls, looking for the source of “that noise.”

They are annoyed. I am happy. They don’t know what music is.

Hear Slow Burn

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