Bay

There's a bloodhound that lives within half a mile of my house, which means that sometimes I know when he's throwing back his head and letting his ears flop around as he lets loose that noise from the deepest part of his chest that only bloodhounds can make. The sun is bright, but with a rim of clouds on the horizon that lets me know we live in Pittsburgh and a storm will break at any moment. The rest of the dogs on the block go wild after just one bay from the hound, and they try as hard as they can to get that long-wave sound to happen.

I imagine him trotting back into the house, satisfied with sending everyone into a frothing rage with just one bellow, and going back to sleep.

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25 April 2014 12:14

FM

I go into a panic when I accidentally fall into one of the many dead spots I've yet to discover, especially at the start of a critical play. The whiteboard marker is still in my hand while I dance around, trying to lean my body in just the right way so I can finish taking down notes on the board while still getting enough reception to hear the conclusion. It's okay, I remind myself, because they'll surely recap anything particularly fantastic.

I never had myself pegged as a baseball nerd, but the rules of the game are just specific enough to allow for constant anticipation of nothing really interesting happening, and it appeals to my appreciation of tedium and ability to keep large amounts of information in my head. I know the shape of PNC Park from every angle, and the startlingly dense stream of information packed in by a talented announcer gives me enough detail to fill in the field in my head.

I'm in the second basement of an ancient building full of strange machinery, and I do not understand radio signals, but there are spots I can stand and receive perfect clarity, while other spots give me nothing but noise. Luckily, somehow, the clear spots hang right over places I might spend a lot of time standing anyway.

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24 April 2014 12:34

Knuckles

My knuckles bleed with the pressure of blood and muscle against the underside of my skin; winter dried them out, and windburn continues to refuse to let them heal. I can feel them swell whenever I move.

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23 April 2014 21:51

Pelted

The sun was out when I finished tying my shoes, but by the time I had lost sight of the building, the first few drops of rain had already touched my skin. I thought I was imagining it at first, as the touch was so soft to be indistinguishable from hair brushing against my neck, a blink that came too fast. Slowly, the sky closed overhead once my feet started crunching on dirt and twigs, and I had resigned myself to getting drenched hours ago.

It wasn't until my turnaround point was in sight that the pouring rain paused, then shifted into pea-sized hail that pierced through the trees and pounded onto the path. I just folded my arms to put my exposed hands close to my body and pulled my bandanna over my ears; the dreads gathered to shield my head and neck. I ran through, me and the three other stubborn assholes on the trail, and pressed in and out of the wall of hail. So long as my heading was east, the tailwind kept the hail hitting my back, and not my face; when the path curved around and pointed west again, I ran with my hands over my eyes.

The sun was out again by the time I got back to my office. "It raining out there?" people asked me as I walked by, water and mud pooling out of my running shoes.

"Not anymore."

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22 April 2014 19:27

Shift

It isn't that the darkrooms are completely silent, but that they are as quiet as any other room on the floor. The roar of the ventilation hoods is conspicuously absent, allowing only the sound of the quiet clicking of a jammed valve to float through the drop ceiling, disembodied. With the white and amber lights off, only the red light remains, not bright enough to illuminate anything beyond a six foot patch of ceiling tiles and the very tops of the ventilation shaft disappearing into the walls.

The pipes are all creaking and settling as if they cannot make up their mind which way to lie before going to sleep.

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21 April 2014 17:56